Wednesday,
April 19, 2023
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from
inside the fish. He said, “I cried out to the Lord in
my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead, and Lord,
you heard me! You threw me
into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried
beneath your wild and stormy waves. Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have
driven me from your presence. Yet I will
look once more toward your holy Temple.’ “I sank beneath the waves, and the
waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped
itself around my head. I sank
down to the very roots of the mountains.
I was imprisoned in the earth, whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, snatched me
from the jaws of death! As my
life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your
holy Temple. Those who
worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with
songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.” Then the Lord ordered the fish
to spit Jonah out onto the beach. Jonah
2:1-10
Perhaps a better
title for today’s message would be:
From HERO to ZERO, and BACK!
So, what do we make
of a prophet who runs from God, gets thrown overboard by some superstitious
sailors, swallowed by a gigantic fish, and spit out on the beach, in the town
God wanted him in the first place. You
could make at least two assumptions (only one of them correct):
1.
Honest, genuine, prophetic prayer nauseates fish!
2.
You should never try hiding from God.
Jonah was reluctant,
but finally showed up in Nineveh, and preached God’s message of destruction to
that pagan city. The surprising turn of
the story is that all the people of that huge city repented and trusted God,
who forgave their sins.[1] Jonah…not so
much; the prophet sunk into a depressive adolescent pout, still refusing to
join God in compassion for a city and people he hated. If there’s one irrefutable conclusion you can
draw from the story of Jonah, it’s:
Sometimes We are our own Worst Enemy
For You Today
If he (or we) have to be swallowed by a big fish, and on the
verge of death, before cooperating with God…are we EVER REALLY COOPERATING
with God?
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper explore
some of these: Fall - Redemption - Obedience and Jonah's Praise and Why,
Jonah?
Title Image: via Pixabay.com Images without citation are in
public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted
from The New Living Translation©
