Reflections on Nahum
“Why should I care?” In my work with at-risk youth, I’m often confronted by that question—and it comes not only from the kids I’m working with, but also from my own cynical thoughts. Serving with children who are living on the fringes is not easy. Some of these kids have experienced the worst that life could throw at them and have come out scarred and worn. When it seems like there isn’t anything I can do to help these kids, frustration settles in—and frustration breeds cynicism.
Dealing with the book of Nahum can be frustrating. Its depictions of violence and destruction can be discordant with the God depicted elsewhere in the Bible. But we see that God’s patience for evil has an end—even if the cynic says otherwise.
Sometimes it’s easier to be a cynic because you don’t have to care at all. A cynic can go about life without any emotional attachment to anything, like a robot going about its own business. I see cynicism everywhere in our culture. Just look at the state of our political discourse. The most important conversations we can have as a society have devolved into petty bickering. The defining characteristic of an entire generation is cynicism: “Why should I care about this if nothing will ever change?” Sometimes it feels like no one cares about anything.
Caring about things can hurt, especially if you throw your whole heart into the endeavor. And getting hurt sucks. It’s not fun. When we get hurt, we throw up walls to protect ourselves. Cynicism is one form that these walls can take.
The prophet Jonah had his own walls—he didn’t believe that God should spare the Assyrians, his nation’s enemy. But in the book, God spares the people of the Assyrian city of Nineveh after they obey his call to repent (Jonah 3:5, 10). In Nahum we see what happens when that message goes unheeded.
It would be easy to become cynical about God if all you read was Nahum. Why should we care if God’s wrath is unmitigated? Yet the destruction of Nineveh is the result of God’s divine justice. Nahum follows many of his fellow prophets when he affirms that “the Lord is slow to anger and great in power” (Nah 1:3). This message is steeped in mercy, but unabated evil draws a just response from God.
You see, the cure for cynicism is hope. Hope for a better future. Hope for something, anything, different than the pain of the past. We allow ourselves to hope because we know that God is slow to anger and abounding in mercy.
C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “[those] who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.” May we believe that God is acting in this present world and that evil is not allowed to continue unceasingly. May we eagerly anticipate tomorrow and all the disappointment, joy, agony, and delight that it may bring—knowing that all of our mistakes and wrongdoings are forgiven in God’s great mercy.
JAKE MAILHOT
Mailhot, J.
warriorprincess4yeshua.blog 