Daily Lesson for October 17, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Jonah chapter 1 verse 17 and chapter 2 verses 1 and 2:

But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

2

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2saying,

‘I called to the Lord out of my distress,

   and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

   and you heard my voice.

Jesus said, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

There come times in life when we feel trapped, buried, swallowed up in a sea of darkness from whence we can neither find nor see any escape. We find ourselves in the belly of the whale, wondering if we can or even want to survive. It is a time of terror and crisis and we feel very much like we are dying. 

Do not dismay.

We are in the belly of the whale; and though it is a kind of death, it is also a birth. For we have gone again into a kind of metaphorical womb, where we are to be reshaped and refashioned and re-birthed again. This is not the end. Or if it is the end, then it is also the beginning. For if it is death, it is surely also resurrection.

Eventually life brings us into the belly of the whale. It is scary, terrifying even. It is dark, and topsy-turvy, and we are ourselves powerless to know how to get out of it. 

So this means it is only by the power of God that we can be rescued. It’s by the power and grace of God that we are swallowed up and also by the power and grace of God that we’ll be preserved and eventually delivered. 

So trust God; and trust the whale. For the whale knows where it is that it’s taking you, and upon which shore it will deliver you. The whale knows these things — even if we don’t.