Can You Hear Me Now?

 

and said, "I called out to the LORD from my distress, and he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried out for help, and you heard my prayer.  Jonah 2:2

 What does it take to get your attention? Can you hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit or do you have to be on death’s door before you’re willing to listen? Or maybe, like me, you hear God and set out with the best intentions to obey Him, but then you get distracted or forget.  I forget what I'm doing in the middle of brushing my teeth, but then I have a brain Tumor so they tell me it's normal.

  Jonah was running from God,  and he wasn't too ashamed to admit it, the Bible tells us he told the sailors on the ship exactly what he was doing.  I explored the idea in my last Jonah post that perhaps he was even proud of his choice, seeing himself as a martyr,  standing in the gap. In any case, God knew exactly what it would take to get through to him.  For some this could be as simple as a conversation, also known as prayer.  Others might notice signs God sent them, like a rainbow.  But Jonah was a tough case.  For him to break down and see the errors of his ways, he had to be brought to the brink of death.  In chapter 2 of his book, Jonah described how water engulfed him up to his neck,  seaweed wrapped around his head,  and he sank to the bottom of the sea. It didn't say whether he cried or to God in the midst of this, or whether he was first swallowed by the whale, but it did say that Jonah cried out to God from the belly of the fish.

 In his prayer, at least as it is written, Jonah didn't confess his sin, he didn't repent or ask for forgiveness. He did ask God for help and then promise to sacrifice to Him when he was saved. You've got to wonder, was Jonah's heart really changed?  I'm looking ahead a bit to his future and knowing some of the choices he is yet to make and things he is yet to say.  Did Jonah embrace God's heart for Nineveh? I don't think so, but that wasn't what God needed him to do either. God can use people to accomplish His will, His plan, even when they're not totally bought in. 

Here's the Thing: Jonah is not a role model, his is a cautionary tale, like the boy who cried wolf.  May we be quick to listen to God so it doesn’t take so much to get our attention!

P.S. The internet ate this post yesterday when I wrote it, kind of like the whale swallowed Jonah, but fortunately also like Jonah it stayed whole and my husband was able to recover it this morning, again a little like Jonah was "recovered" from the whale!