Zero Tolerance

   One of those new buzz words we see in our world today is zero tolerance. The school has zero tolerance policy with those that bring a weapon onto the campus. The NFL has a zero-tolerance toward domestic violence. The company has zero tolerance when it comes to discrimination.

   The idea is that certain behaviors are so reprehensible that there will be no mercy or acceptance. No grace will be given, any wrong doing will be fully punished, no one will get away with it.

  I for one think zero tolerance policies are foolish. Not because people don’t deserve to be punished, but because of the hubris that we think there can be no exceptions. Situations are rarely cut and dry.  There are unseen consequences. Life has more shades of gray than we care to admit.  We don’t know everything or understand all the ins and outs of every possible occurrence. In our desire to punish the guilty we leave no room for redemption.

  If there ever was one that could adopt a fair zero tolerance policy, it would be God.  He sees and knows all (Hebrew 4:13).  He can rightly judge not just the actions but the hearts of men (1^st Thessalonians 2:4).  Yet God always seem to leave the door open for forgiveness

  That’s what Jonah was so mad about. He had an enemy that he knew deserved the wrath of God. They needed to pay. Don’t even give them the chance to repent. But God did, and it made Jonah furious.

He prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity "Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life."

Jonah 4:2-3

  The irony was if Jonah would rather be dead, he could have just kept his mouth shut while he was in the belly of the fish. However, Jonah cried out for forgiveness, for mercy for a chance to make things right. And God gave it to him. Yet Jonah couldn’t do the same things for others.

  Maybe we are not that different than Jonah. Instead of trying to put the zero tolerance on others maybe we should apply to ourselves. If we were as strict to ourselves as we demand of others maybe we would be less sinful. But then again we know we could not hold to that standard of perfection, we need grace.

  Aren’t we glad that God knows that about us?