“As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
There’s something about good things happening at the last second that inspires us. Bottom of the ninth home runs in baseball or buzzer beaters in basketball are the most exciting ways for a team to achieve victory. I think there’s a very good reason for this and we see a hint of it right here in Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish.
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“You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the current overcame me. All your breakers and your billows swept over me. But I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever been in the midst of a mess and thought or said, “Why God?” That’s not an uncommon reaction to tough situations. Now, it could be simply that we are crying out like that because we genuinely don’t understand why things are happening like they are. But, in the midst of hard times we can’t easily explain, God is a convenient target for our accusations. This natural reaction is sort of what we see on Jonah’s lips here.
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“I called to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me. I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol; you heard my voice.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Are you the kind of person who calls for help before you break something or after it’s already shattered into pieces? It’s not just a matter of pride that determines how far you go into something you can’t do before you wave the help flag. Sometimes it’s a matter of information. For Jonah here, it was a simple matter of the fact that he didn’t have any other options. The question is, though, did he really mean it?
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“The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever felt like you’ve had a rough day? Have you ever felt like everything is falling apart around you and the pieces keep getting smaller and smaller such that trying to put them back together is looking like an increasingly hopeless project? Whenever that depressing feeling is pressing in on you and despair is starting to take hold in your heart, tell yourself this one little things and feel better about your situation: At least I’m not sitting in the belly of a giant fish.
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“He answered them, ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this great storm that is against you.’ Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
When I was growing up, we had a board game called Bonkers. The idea was that the game was different every time you played. The board didn’t have any instructions on the path you followed. Instead, you added them as you went. The results varied, but the roll of the dice could result in the loss of several points, or a turn that went on for several minutes. It was bonkers…kind of like the story of Jonah the further into it we get.
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The Nexus 