Jonah 2
Jonah remembers God in prayer
STORY
Three ministers were talking about prayer, and they started to share their ideas on effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repair man was working on the phone system in the background.
One minister felt that it was important how you held your hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship.
The second suggested that real prayer was conducted humbly, on your knees.
The third thought that they both had it wrong; the only position worth its salt was to pray stretched out flat on your face.
By this time the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected: ‘I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended 40 feet above the ground.’
For Jonah, perhaps the most powerful prayer he ever prayed might have been when he was in the belly of a fish.
‘When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.’
(Jonah 2:7)
Jonah made this prayer after he had disobeyed God by not going to the city of Nineveh and was on the run instead. While on a ship heading to Joppa, in the opposite direction, a storm gathered. The crew drew lots to find out who was responsible, and the lot fell on Jonah. At his request (Jonah 1:12,15) Jonah was thrown overboard and the sea grew calm.
But for Jonah things became worse; he was swallowed by a big fish (traditionally but mistakenly called a whale). Jonah was stuck inside this fish, inside its belly. Knowing he was in a very tricky and dangerous situation, it is not a surprise that he then remembered the Lord in prayer!
We have all done the same – prayed passionately to God when we too found ourselves in a tricky or difficult situation. Whether you were running from God or not, there may have been times when you have felt you were going through a storm, or perhaps felt you’d been thrown overboard into the raging sea. You too may have felt like you’d been saved from one peril only to be swallowed by a fish — ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’, so to say.
No matter how bad the storms of our life get, even when we get very low, it is good for us to remember God in prayer. For as someone once said, ‘We have to look up to see down, and it is then that we discover God is able to deliver us.’
We are reminded of this in Psalm 50:15 (MEV), where it is written,
‘Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you and you will glorify me.’
So what do we do when we find ourselves ‘in the belly of a fish’?
Remember God in prayer. Why?
- Pray because God is good, even when we are not.
- Pray because God is powerful enough to pull us out of anything.
- Pray because prayer will change us for the better.
Adapted from sermoncentral.com
PRAYER
Wonderful Father, we bless your name today.
When we look back over our lives, we can’t help but thank you for your goodness and mercy.
We thank you as we reflect on all your awesome works for us, for our families, our church family, our community, and our nation.
Father God, we love you because you hear our prayers, and we give thanks and praise your name.
For Lord, you are good, and your unfailing love continues for ever. Your faithfulness continues to each generation.
Amen.
