The book of Jonah is a strange tale that you probably remember from Sunday School. It’s got a big whale, a rebellious prophet, a tree eating worm, and a repentant Nineveh. These features make Jonah perfect for the screen but a bit hard to understand as scripture. Should we read Jonah like any other prophet or is it a parable? That strange ambiguity takes some work to understand but it’s also what makes the book of Jonah so powerful. At the heart of the story of Jonah is a reluctant prophet frustrated by the mercy of God. As we read this strange little story, we’re invited to look at our own lives and ask ourselves, do we really want God to love our enemies? Do we really want God to be merciful?

This week we conclude our series Reckless?, exploring the bold, relational, and non-coercive love of God. Today’s focus is the tension between suffering and hope, control and trust, certainty and identity.

Romans 8 reminds us that even in the groaning of creation, the ache of uncertainty, and the absence of easy answers, God is with us. Not through domination or certainty, but through loving presence, secure attachment, and patient hope.

This passage invites us to live as co-laborers with God—not by escaping the tension, but by rooting our identity in God’s love and letting that shape how we wait, pray, and participate in the healing of the world.

This week in our Reckless? series, we explore a powerful and surprising truth: God's love is vulnerable. While vulnerability might seem weak or unsafe, the story of Jesus reveals a God who does not grasp at power or rule from a distance, but who gives, descends, and draws near—even to the point of suffering. Paul’s hymn in Philippians 2 invites us to take on the same posture: to live not from control or coercion, but from the strength of sacrificial love.

To love is to be vulnerable. And to be vulnerable is to share in the very heart of who God is.