I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
Jonah remains one of the most infamous characters in the Bible for actively running away from God and His will. Yet in his most dire time, in the stomach of a whale, he cries out to God. What Jonah lays out, is a testimony of Gods faithfulness to us. Even in places where no man could reach us, God is able to remain ever present. He says the poetic equivalent of "come hell or high water, God can hear my prayer."
Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
yet I shall again look
upon your holy temple.’
The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
at the roots of the mountains.
Through the book of Jonah, we see his situation go from bad to worse. He runs away on a ship which is caught in a storm, thrown overboard, swallowed by a giant fish, and thrown up back on the land he started in. Then has to walk hundreds of miles through the desert, still covered in whale vomit, to the city where his people are being tortured in order to deliver his one-sentence prophecy. At the lowest point in his journey, he says, "I am driven away
from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple." There is nothing that can stop God from delivering his people, whether it's the wicked inhabitants of Ninevah or Jonah.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord my God.
When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
Those who pay regard to vain idols
forsake their hope of steadfast love.
But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!”
~Jonah 2
In life we find ourselves in all different predicaments. We all have our own vomit-covered-desert journeys where life is at its lowest and we feel out of reach. Yet Jonahs prayer is a reminder that even in the belly of the beast, in our darkest hour, God is able to meet us and offer His love and salvation.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~ Romans 8:38-39
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