In the whale

I found possibly the best book ever at the library.

It's called Jonah's Whale

 

Yeah, it's a kids book. So what?

 



I found it lying at the end of the shelf during story time, and since Jonah is one of our tried-and-true favorite bible stories around here, I figured I'd pick it up for the girls to read.

They like it, but that's not what this post is about.

What this post is about is the fact that this book BLEW MY MIND.

And here is why:

It's all about the whale. It's all about how God created this whale, nurtured him, loved him, and basically orchestrated his entire life to be present for that fateful moment when Jonah had a rare inspired second of courage and told the sailors on his boat to throw him overboard.

And the whale was there. Not to punish him, but to SAVE HIM.

Maybe it's just me, but I have NEVER looked at that story (and, as I said, it's a favorite around here, so I've read it pretty often) with that perspective. But I don't think it's just me.

We read it thinking that the whale is a consequence, a punishment, a trial for Jonah. That due to his disobedience, he gets to spend 3 days in nasty-intestinal-fishiness.

And we apply this metaphor to our lives. That our problems or our trials or our difficulties (our "whales," if you will) are there as a valley on the way to the high places of our callings. That if we can get through all these bad things, we will make it to the other side.

But what if we change our perspective? What if God really did orchestrate that whale to be there at that moment not as a punishment, but as a savior?

"Suddenly, Whale saw the man Jonah flying through the air, hurtling into the sea. And God said to Whale, "Save the man Jonah." Whale had never saved a drowning man before. He opened his mouth as if to swallow a thousand tiny fish and--- sluuuuuurp! went the man Jonah..."

 

What if all these problems we are encountering are there not to hinder us, not to punish us, but to SAVE us? See, I realize now that the punishment, the consequence in the story was that Jonah was to drown. His disobedience and stubbornness and sin were causing the storm and were going to cause the deaths of the entire crew, and he knew that he had to jump overboard and drown himself to save everyone else. THAT was what was due to him. But God had mercy on him, and sent the whale to save him.

 

I'm sure Jonah didn't see it this way. Reading Jonah's prayer from inside the fish, he sounds pretty miserable. And I always picture him being kinda whiny (is that just me? He sounds like a whiny dude, right?)  He was in there for 3 days, and all we read is a short snippet, that starts (basically--- my paraphrase) with "God, YOU did this to me!" And that's the way we sound most of the time, isn't it? "God, why are you doing this to me? God, why am I in this job? Why don't I have more money? Why can't I be happier/stronger/wealthier/more talented? God, why have you forgotten me?!?"

 

But maybe we need to shift our perspective and consider that maybe, just maybe, we are in the belly of the whale to be saved from drowning in the storm of our own making. Maybe, just maybe, what the consequences of our actions SHOULD be is much worse than fish guts and whale goo and seasickness (I mean, he must have been seasick, really).  Or much worse than driving a dinky car and not being able to afford steak and working a job that sucks or ~insert problem here.~

 

Maybe God orchestrated our current situations from the very first moment of creation to save us from ourselves.

 

And maybe what we can learn from Jonah is to lift our eyes to the Lord (even hundreds of feet under the sea, in the belly of a whale) and say:

 

"When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, 'Salvation comes from the LORD.' " (Jonah 2:7-9)

 

Because when Jonah finally did this, when he said "I'm going to praise you and keep my vows to you no matter what's going on, and I'm going to focus my eyes on the LORD and not on my circumstances," a great thing happened.

 

"...the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land."

 

The end.