A Peculiar Answer to Prayer

Jonah 2:1-2 (NIV) From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

Jonah was a prophet who didn't like a particular prophesy that God had commanded him to deliver to the people of Nineveh. He didn't like it because he thought that if the people of that wicked city would hear the prophesy of coming judgement, they might repent and turn from their wicked ways. Jonah didn't want them to repent because he wanted to see those wicked people receive their due punishment. In any case, Jonah decided that he was not going to follow through on what the Lord told Him to do and wound up trying to run by boarding a ship that was headed to Tarshish. The Lord caused a severe storm to rock the ship to the point that the crew were terrified and began calling on their gods for help. They cast lots to see who was responsible for the trouble at sea and the lot fell to Jonah. Jonah confessed that he was running away from his God and he suggested that they throw him overboard to save the ship and themselves. They threw him over and when they did, the raging sea grew calm.

But what about Jonah? He had been hurled into the storm-tossed waters which were about to become his tomb. He cried out to God and the Lord answered...but not how you would think. The Lord saved Jonah by having a great big fish come and swallow Jonah whole. That doesn't sound like any great rescue and it must have been terrifying. But remarkably, Jonah saw that as answered prayer. There he was in the belly of a fish, offering up prayers of thanksgiving for God's mercy in saving him.

That makes me think of the many times that God has rescued us when we prayed while we were thinking that the answer was worse than our original problem. If I had my choice of drowning in the sea or being slowly digested by a humongous fish, I think I would choose the drowning. But Jonah was a prophet who was intimately acquainted with God. We know that from the fact that the Lord spoke to him numerous times with either a message for others or with a lesson for himself. Despite Jonah's dire circumstances in the belly of that fish, He knew that this was the way that the Lord had chosen to spare his life and that if God did spare his life, there was more to come. Sure enough, after Jonah's prayer of thanksgiving, the Lord ordered the fish to spit out Jonah onto the shore. God knows exactly what He's doing and most times, He answers our prayers for mercy or for help in unconventional ways. They are so unconventional sometimes that we don't view them as a rescue. But they certainly are. Jonah needed that time in that fish to reconsider and repent for disobeying the Lord and from trying to run from Him. He learned that day that God is merciful, that you need to obey Him, that you can't run from Him and that He will rescue you even when you have done wrong. The lesson for us is to receive God's answers to our prayers in whatever way that He sends them and to thank Him even though we don't fully understand. In whatever peculiar way He answers you, know that He has everything well in hand!

Pastor Joey Vazquez