A Prayer From the Gut

[Jonah 2]

Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying,

"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.
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.
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!"

And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

{Rev. Dwight Yoo}

Let's stop and consider... it's hard to believe that people can be swallowed by a fish and this guy is praying?! This is ridiculous. So lets have a word about miracles in the bible. Noah's Ark has been lambasted by Bill Maher. But consider this... the entire framework of Christianity rests upon a set of miracles. Jesus was born of a virgin birth, lived a virgin life, and then died and was resurrected.

Consider the words of Tim Keller:

"when studying a natural event, the scientist must always assume there is a natural cause. That is because natural causes are the only kind its methodology can address."

"There would be no experimental model for testing the statement:'No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.' It is therefore a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding."

It takes faith to believe that there is no supernatural cause. If there is a God who made all of nature and the universe, it is easy to believe that He could also suspend natural laws with such power and ability.

God uses distress to revive and rescue us

Sheol is the place of the dead and separation from God. It is the Hebrews' version of hell. He was drowning. The deep waters means more than just literally deep waters. It implies chaos. Jonah is in living hell, in utter chaos. He's going through all of this and then Jonah remembers God. Jonah started in a deep sleep in the ship. God woke him from his physical and spiritual slumber. As Jonah was plunged into all this chaos, Jonah prayed to God. And God sent salvation... not in the form of a boat, not in a person, but rather in the form of an enormous fish. It is in the belly of this fish that Jonah realizes this. That God was the one who sent the storm and sent the fish. God was the one who sent the deep difficult distress.

God is patient in the process of transforming unwilling servants

Jonah prays to God. God hears Jonah's prayer. God commands, and the fish spits out Jonah. Jonah prays this prayer of repentance. He recognizes God as the one who saves and also the one who calls the shots. Jonah is grateful and thankful during that prayer. But notice that there is still tension between what God calls us to and what Jonah wants. This is found throughout the psalms. There is both a question if God really cares as well as a small voice of faith that God is good and loving. There are times where we are genuinely grateful and thankful. But this is interspersed with times where we question, we second-guess, and we whine & complain.