When I’m with my nephews and nieces back east in Baltimore, I like to grab every chance I can to help them see the Bible as something wonderful... I want them to enjoy their life in Jesus. They’re just youngsters, but when I’m around them, I’ll challenge them to Bible quizzes or we’ll make up skits about people in the Bible... anything to help them gain interest in His Word.
Well, recently, I was with Ken Tyler, my nephew, and Cori, my niece. They were traveling in the back of the van with me and so we bided our time on the country roads with games. I said to Cori, “Okay, who in the Bible wore a multi-colored coat?” She thought for an instant and shouted out, “Joseph!” Ken Tyler, the younger of the two, was itching on the seat, he was dying to answer the next question. I made it really easy. “Ken Tyler,” I said, “who was swallowed by a whale?” His eyes lit up: “Pinocchio!” he said with great confidence... he just knew it had to be right!
I didn’t want to put a damper on his enthusiasm and so I said, “That’s true, but I want to know who in the Bible was swallowed by a whale?” I think at that point, Cori chimed in with the right answer.
It did get us talking about Jonah and the whale, however. The kids weren’t sure how anyone could live — I mean really live — for three whole days inside of a whale. It made me think, “Wow, what a Bible lesson that is!” Because Jonah 2:5 says that Jonah only cried out to God when he hit rock-bottom... when he wasn’t sure he could live, could survive. Down, down, down Jonah went, down to the sea, down into the water, into the whale, down into his belly, and even the deepest part of his belly, lying there with seaweed wrapped around his head.
My niece and nephew were right. It’s a lesson for us. Sometimes we’re in a situation, in the middle of a painful trial, and we wonder how anyone — how we! — can survive. We think, “God, I can’t do this, I cannot live this way, I cannot go on.” But then, when we’re at our lowest, when we’ve gone down about as far as we can go, when we sink to our lowest point, often it’s only then that our heart, from its depths, cries out in utter distress. We know we simply cannot live this way. That’s when Jonah’s lesson kicked in. And it’s echoed in the New Testament where the apostle Paul who also felt as though he could not go on said, “These things happen that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.”
Jonah is a story of resurrection. Even Jesus referred to His own resurrection by pointing to Jonah. And Jonah’s story of resurrection out of the depths, out of the pit where we just know we can’t live... Jonah’s story is a comforting reminder that the God who raises the dead... is the same God who can raise you up out of your deadly circumstances.
If you’ve been heading down, down, down... remember the God who raises you up, who raises the dead.
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JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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