In the Belly of a Fish

(Excerpt from the message entitled: A Whale Of A Story – Part 2.) “…The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17). Sometimes when a person calls on God for help, it seems like the Lord rescues him from one dilemma only to face another. For Jonah, he went from being lost at sea to becoming fish food. Now I wonder what it must have been like for Jonah inside there. If you’ve ever seen Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio,” you might picture Jonah as Gepetto was–with elbow room enough to even lay out on a lounge chair if he wanted to. But I tend to believe that it wasn’t nearly that comfortable of a lodging place. Fish digestive tracts aren’t necessarily known for their quaint accommodations. Now inside the stomach it most certainly was dark, probably quite close-fitting and surely very slimy. And after three days and three nights with all the acids and enzymes at work, Jonah may have felt like he was as close to becoming a prune as anyone had ever been. And can you imagine if Jonah wasn’t inside there alone? Surely he must have had some company, don’t you think? Could there have been some other half-digested bait alongside him? This was a large fish. And what of the smell? It certainly was awful at best. Whatever the case, the belly of a fish surely must not have been the best of environments for Jonah to find himself in. Yet the fish was God’s chosen means to rescue him! Again – sometimes when a person calls on God for help, it seems like the Lord rescues him from one dilemma only to face another. Has that ever happened to you? Has God ever chosen to answer your prayer for deliverance in a “creative way”?