Last week we left Jonah in the belly of a big fish. Once again, Jonah went from the tossing waves of the ocean (not a good feeling) to being fish food (an even worse feeling). Jonah was certain that the end had come for him. I can't imagine how slowly time must have passed... Think about it... You just told a bunch of weathered deck hands to throw you into the sea as a sort of sacrifice to appease the wrath of God. You likely aren't seeing a clear way home from that. Do you think Jonah actually knew what had happened when the big fish took the big gulp? Here is a man who knows he has been tracked down by a God that specifically told him to go and preach salvation to a lost and dying world. What must it have been like? Dark... Wet... The smell of digesting fish and/or sea plants... Stomach acids eating away at your skin maybe? At this point in Jonah's existence... life stunk! Time likely seemed to stand still. Do you think Jonah thought he had reached his eternity? Do you really think he initially had a grasp on the fact that God had just provided a way back to His good graces? Do you think he had a grasp on just where he was? Chances are good that he had never heard of someone being swallowed by a fish. Let's face it... Jonah was clueless at this point. He was at the end of his rope. There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING he could do in his own power to improve the position he was in. Sound familiar?
So what did he do? I'm guessing he became really quiet, just before he began crying like a baby as he recognized what he had done. As he began to recognize how his own actions had brought him to this place, he began to crave the presence of God. The man who payed others to help him run from the presence and the plan of God was humbled. The man who wanted nothing to do with carrying out God's mission to save a people that he (Jonah) wanted nothing to do with, now recognized that he was not the master of his own destiny.
Indulge me for a few minutes. Go back about 30 years with me in this song... then come back for the rest of today's devotional.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E226NpTWTOkMan, that song does something to me everytime I hear it... Anyway...
Now, the rest of Jonah's prayer from last week:
Jonah 2:7-10
Contemporary English Version (CEV)
7 When my life was slipping away,
I remembered you—
and in your holy temple
you heard my prayer.
8 All who worship worthless idols
turn from the God
who offers them mercy.
9 But with shouts of praise,
I will offer a sacrifice
to you, my Lord.
I will keep my promise,
because you are the one
with power to save.
10 The Lord commanded the fish to vomit up Jonah on the shore. And it did.
Jonah went from being still, recognizing the situation he had gotten himself into - to shouting praises inside the guts of a fish. Jonah still had no clue that God was getting ready to give him a second chance... right up until the moment that he became fish puke. Jonah was laying there on the sand looking like the end of an Allstate Insurance Mayhem commercial... Mayhem is everywhere... Jonah recognized who carried his coverage when he said:
you are the one with power to saveAre you in good hands?
