Some years ago, I was counselling a couple whose marriage was falling apart.

At one stage, I turned to the husband, who had been unfaithful.

I asked him: Do you remember the promise you made to your wife at your wedding?

“Of course I do,” he answered, clearly bothered I had asked.

I continued: “I’m wondering what those promises mean to you now.” He shrugged his shoulders and said:, “I guess I changed my mind.”

Just as a bride and groom stake their lives on a set of promises made at the altar, we also place our lives in the hands of a God who promises to care for us forever.

How risky a gamble is this?

What if He changes His mind?

We can transfer this question to the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. It is one of the shorter books packed with lessons of faith.

Turning to Jonah 3:10, we might think we have our question: “When God saw that the Ninevites did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed His mind about the calamity that He said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”

That may sound like a straightforward answer to our question, but it’s not that simple.

Jonah 3:1-9 reads what exactly happened to Jonah.

He was a Jew, chosen by God for a specific task.

Like all his contemporaries, he believed the Jews were the most blessed of all races.

This was one reason why he rejected God’s call to go and preach to the people of Nineveh.

It appears he runs away because he is frightened of pagan Ninevites who will be hostile toward him and the message of God.

What I believe is Jonah couldn’t bear the thought of God’s mercy on the nasty pagans.

He ran away from the situation, but couldn’t escape God’s hand.

He landed in a big fish’s belly for three days and nights.

This story isn’t about fish, sharks, or whales. It isn’t even primarily about Jonah or the Ninevites.

Its real purpose is to teach us about God.

When we ask whether God changes His mind, we have to consider what we are asking.

Are we wondering He might unexpectedly reject those whom He had chosen earlier?

If God is like that, our unique and eternal security will not be guaranteed.

How would we feel if we have to share our privilege in Christ with others, especially those we dislike?

Jonah’s story is a humorous way of showing what a mess we get into when we turn our backs on God.

It also shows how useless it is to try to flee from God.

Jonah went to Nineveh, but what did he do there?

He delivered the world’s worst sermon, five words in Hebrew and eight in English: “Forty days more and Niveveh shall be overthrown.”

No brilliant biblical analyses.

Just five loaded words.

It certainly makes it clear Jonah wasn’t chosen for this mission because he was eloquent.

We can almost see him rolling his eyes as he stands in the middle of the city and spews out those five words.

As soon as he finished, he threw his backpack on, turned from the Ninevites and went off to find a comfortable seat to watch the imminent display of fire and brimstone.

For us, those five words would possibly be too light, but the effect on the Ninevites was enormous:

“And the people of Nineveh believed God They proclaimed a fast and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.”

Most preachers are delighted if one or two respond to the altar call but, in Jonah’s case, the entire city turned to God.

Does God change His mind?

Yes, provided we change first.

God changed His heart only after the Ninevites changed theirs.

He responded with compassion to those who repented.

This means that there must be at least one way to influence God to change His mind and to lift His judgment.

It is to stop sinning and start repenting.

This should be good news to us all, even today.

But where was Jonah?

The world’s worst preacher had just become the world’s most successful preacher.

He should have been elated.

But there’s no dancing or praising God from Jonah.

He wasn’t even quite pleased with himself or God.

The repentance of the Ninevites “was very displeasing to Jonah and he became angry.”

This preacher had an attitude problem.

The only person who had salvation at the beginning of the story is cursing God at the end.

There is a lesson for us from the life of Jonah.

We need to study the book of Jonah, especially in today’s context.

We live in a world with enemy camps all around us.

Tensions are mounting between the good guys – who, by the way, are always “us” – and the bad guys, who are always “them.”

We have a vested interest in making sure our enemies remain our enemies.

History has taught us having a common enemy energizes a society; hatred unites people and makes them feel righteous.

Such an attitude complicates our lifestyles, as well as our witness for Jesus Christ.

The title of this article asks a wrong question.

We shouldn’t be asking if God ever changes His mind.

Instead, we should ask ourselves whether we are willing to change.

Narayan Mitra is a chaplain at Thompson Rivers University and pastor of the Merritt Baptist Church.