In today’s society, a leader should not be begging; in fact, a begging leader is a weak leader. This mentality does not only apply to those in leadership positions but to all people in horizontal relationships. To beg, to plead, to supplicate are not good action verbs; people do not like to do any of those. Anything this humbling is too much to ask. Many people find it difficult to ask for help when in need how much more begging! This is too humiliating; it is beneath people to do such an act. Fortunately, our standard as Christians is Christ, the humble One. Humility is what we are to seek because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Moreover, God himself is humble; He himself is pleading, begging, supplicating. Therefore, if God, who is so powerful, so grand, so high, the very author of life, who needs no one to sustain Him or give Him life, the Self-sufficient One, the Faithful One, the Jealous One, the All-consuming One, etc. If this God can humble himself to the point of pleading with his people how much more we?
God’s heart is beautiful, it is filled with true love, love at its finest. In His love, God displays His beauty in everything that He makes. The fact that we are made in the image of God to reflect Him is God’s love unto us. The mind of God is always for good, to do good to all that is His (See the famous Jeremiah 29). It is quite impressive and mind boggling, yet that is who God is. He is good, He is compassionate, He is slow to anger, He is patient and He is able to do abundantly above what we can think or imagine and the best part is that NOTHING is impossible to Him, nothing! Why then would a God like this humble himself and plead with His people? What degree of love is this?
The book of Isaiah and the book of Amos are just a few examples of God’s plea to His people. God spoke through his prophets to convey a message to His people. The message was always to beg His people to return to Him, to plead with them, to reason with them in order for them to escape the punishment that they deserved for disobeying Him. No matter how many times the Israelites disobeyed, no matter how many times they prostituted themselves by worshipping other gods and sacrificing to them, God was relentless in His pursuit to bring them back to Him; even when He was rejected, he still pursued, despite the insults, He was still there. What is more is that He pleaded not for himself but for the welfare of His people. He wanted His people to choose life and not death, He wanted His people – those He chose to love to imitate Him, to pay attention to Him, to discover Him, to marvel at what He does continually, to love Him. This is not because He needed their love, as we have pointed earlier, He is Self-sufficient, but it is simply for their own good, so that they would experience Him in a different way.
God is good. His love is unfathomable, it makes no sense, that is why prophets like Jonas were not happy at God for his love because God’s love is ready to accept anyone that will repent and come to him. Many of us Christians are like Jonas, thinking that God’s love was only for us and that it should not extend to those that are living in an unworthy manner or those who are purely evil, committing acts we would find unforgivable. Yet, God’s love says the contrary, it is ready to accept that which you think is despicable. Therefore, I plead with you brethren, you who know Christ as Lord and saviour to be like Jesus and imitate God. I plead with you to plead with those that are in disagreement with you, to plead with those that have wronged you, to reason with them and do everything in your power to get them to reconcile (Romans 12:18; Hebrews 12:14; Colossians 3:13). In God’s kingdom, the onus is always on the one who knows much, the one to whom much has been given to lead the way, to show what should be done. Jesus did that by humbling himself for undeserving people, I think we too can do that for undeserving brothers, sisters, parents, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, bosses, fill in the blank with any relationship you know and have. May God give us the grace to do this! It might not be easy, but it is definitely pleasing to our heavenly Father as we reflect him in this love.
A Word Aptly Spoken 