It's not fair. They did terrible things and You just... forgave them?

Jonah was angrier about a dead plant than a living city. Sometimes our bitterness tells us more about us than about the person we're bitter toward. God's mercy for someone else is not punishment for you.

The conversation

The child: “Daddy God, it's not fair. They did terrible things and You just... forgave them?”

God: “Yes. Just like I forgave you.”

The child: “That's different! I'm not like them.”

God: “Jonah said the same thing. From inside a fish.”

The child: “But they don't deserve mercy.”

God: “Did you? When you needed it?”

The child: “...no. But at least I was sorry.”

God: “They were sorry too. You just didn't want to see it.”

The child: “I wanted them to get what was coming to them.”

God: “I know. And I wanted them to get what I wanted for them — which is life.”

The child: “So my anger doesn't matter to You?”

God: “Your anger matters deeply. But it's eating you, not them.”

The child: “Jonah sat under a plant and pouted. Is that what I'm doing?”

God: “You're grieving more over your grudge than over their pain. Jonah cried over a vine and ignored a city.”

The child: “That stings.”

God: “Truth usually does. But I say it because I love you too much to let bitterness make your world smaller.”

The child: “Okay. I don't like it yet. But I hear You.”

God: “That's more than Jonah gave Me.”

"And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" Jonah 4:11, KJV