My God, give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.

This is the word of the Lord that came to Jonah, son of Amittai:

"Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; their wickedness has come up before me."(Jonah 1:2)

There are times when God in His infinite mercy chooses us to be part of His divine plan of salvation.

Not everybody hears His voice loud and clear as Jonah did, but the message is pretty clear.

"But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish away from the Lord." (Jonah 1:3)

So Jonah chose to go another way. All in all, why should he follow this voice? What would he gain from preaching? For what he knew, the people of Nineveh would not be happy to hear the bad news and could shoot the messenger. Better flee to save his life. How human.

To be fair, Jonah was also relying on God's mercy not to destroy the city of Nineveh and its inhabitants - see Jonah 4:2 "for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing". What Jonah forgot was to rely on God's help to fulfill his mission. Again, how human.

What happened next is that Jonah joined a crew of mariners sailing to Tarshish, a huge storm threatened their lives, Jonah confessed that his running away from the Lord was the cause of the storm and jumped off the ship into the stormy waters to quiet down the sea and let the sailors safely reach their destination - see Jonah 1:4-16. How noble and heroic. Not many people would have jumped off as Jonah did.

In all this, the mariners were converted. God can turn bad into good. Really. Had Jonah done immediately what he was asked to do, these people probably would not have had a chance to get to know the Lord and convert during that journey.
This is food for thought: sometimes waiting before acting can lead to a greater good.

God took pity on Jonah and saved him from drowning - the prayers from the freshly converted seamen helped, together with Jonah's repentance - see Jonah 2.
It is at this point in fact, that Jonah fully realized that following his human instinct to save his life led him to risk to lose everything- including his life, the very life he was trying to save.

He comes back to himself and turns to God for help. Which promptly arrived. Not that Jonah was left on his own anyway, the Lord had provided for him during all the time.

"So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD'S bidding." (Jonah 3:3)

Well, time to act. At least, this is what Jonah did. He was spared his life to fulfill a mission and he acted upon that. Other food for thought: how many times are we in distress and call God for help making promises to do His will just to forget about it the very moment we are saved?

The story continues with Jonah preaching to the people of Nineveh, who repented, converted  themselves and fasted. Everybody was converted from the humblest servant to the powerful king. I would be very proud of that if I accomplished something like that.

"When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out."   (Jonah 3:10)

Thanks God for His mercy! Again, I would be really proud of such success! Maybe too much, risking to fall into sin because of that.

So, what did Jonah do?

"Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh." (Jonah 4:1)

He, he! How human, again.
Have you ever prayed for somebody you cared about who was, well, lost? We all know somebody who is in our opinion lost. It can be for any reason. I am thinking about somebody with self-destroying habits. You Prayed. Prayed insistently. Prayed without losing hope that this son or daughter of God would get to see the light and walk in the presence of God (If you have not, consider doing it. It is a beautiful thing to do. Pray with complete faith in God's mercy).
And eventually it happened. This brother or sister of yours finally allowed God to operate in his/her life and got back to life. At that point, well, instead of rejoicing and thanking God for this miracle happening with your intercession... humanity takes over and you are disappointed.
It may seem counter-intuitive but it happens. We end up being disappointed because we are not the good guys anymore. We end up being jealous that other people note the change  in them and in comparison we do not shine anymore. It is only human. We are the lost son's brother over and over again - see Luke 15:11-21.
It is only with God's grace that we can get over these feelings.

The story of Jonah ends with God teaching him that He cares about every single living thing in the universe - see Jonah 4.

What a great story about God's mercy! In His infinite mercy, He would never allow us to carry a load we cannot take. Whatever happens to us, He is with us and does not let any harm happen to us. If only we trusted God and His mercy!

"My God, give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt."
(Saint Augustine, Confessions, X,29)