Jonah’s Prayer

"And the LORD commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." Jonah 2:10 (NIV)

A friend of mine pointed me to these two verses before I got to them in chapter two of Jonah.

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice for you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD.
Jonah 2:8-9

Chapter two of Jonah is his prayer after he is swallowed by the fish. In it, he is thanking God for His mercy. That he would be swallowed by a fish and that God spared him from drowning.

Many of the parts of the prayer are strait out of the Psalms but his grasp that God was at the center of his situation is awesome. He realizes that he disobeyed and that God punished him to make a point but in His infinite wisdom and love He still wants to use Jonah.

He still wants Jonah to be His man.

A lot of times I struggle with thinking I’ve done too much bad stuff–or that one thing that takes me out of God’s plan. But Jonah literally heard a command from God, walked in the opposite direction, probably joked about it, and defied God to His face. And God still wanted to use him.

In the midst of his punishment he sees his dire situation not through his own eyes–mad that he is in a fish and not on a boat headed to Tarshish–but through the eyes of God. He realizes that God is working all things together for His glory. He thanks God for the fish. He dedicates himself to the LORD’s purpose. In verse six he says, “…but You brought my life up from the pit, O LORD, my God.” Jonah realizes that it is his fault that he is there but it is compeltely God’s hand working him out of that situation, shaping him along the way.

I looked ahead to chapter three and saw that God asks Jonah to go to Ninevah again. This is forgiveness by God and a second chance given to Jonah. It’s a chance He wants to give us but often we don’t accept. We need to start taking that chance so that God can use us in the Ninavahs in our world.

Going in the Opposite Direction

I started reading Jonah today. It’s always cool to read the actual text from stories we all know. You always find little things in the text you didn’t notice before–depth in the story beyond the basics. Today wasn’t any different.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.
Jonah 1:15-16 (ESV)

After Jonah runs away from God and the storm comes upon the sailors, Jonah tells them to him into the sea. Eventually they do. As soon as they do, the sea is calm. The men fear God exceedingly and then they offer a sacrifice and made vows. Essentially, they were converted.

I think it’s amazing that God was able to use not only Jonah’s unbelief but His punishmen of him to serve a purpose to bring glory. We question a lot when things don’t go well in our lives, but isn’t that still exactly where God wants us? We wonder why God would let us still mess up over and over again even under grace, but doesn’t God want to use that?

If God could do it with Jonah, he could do it with us. Maybe He wants to take all of our sin, shortcomings, and doubt–all of our humanity–and use it for His glory to bring others to Him and his glory. It’s amazing to think of a God who could do that, who is that powerful. I have to realize that I’m not even good enough at being bad to be unusable. That’s downright humbling