What is God like? The story of Jonah

“By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

This Sunday we will be going over the story of Jonah, for most I believe this will be a familiar Biblical story. For some even the first thing that will pop into your head is the veggie tales movie based on Jonah.

This is a great account, a prophet who is given a hard task by God, runs away, God follows him and teaches him and shows compassion, then God shows compassion to even more people, if you can guess now our theme and question is what is God like? and the answer, which we can learn from the account of Jonah is that God is merciful, loving and compassionate.

Questions:

can you describe what a prophet is?

what do you think people perception of God is? both by people in the church and outside the church?

what does true repentance look like?

Read Joel 2:13, is it difficult to believe God is slow to anger? are you slow to anger?

on the same theme of the veggie tales movie, below is the link for the song “belly of the whale” by newsboys.

Kids Story on Jonah