24 From a Place of Rest

I was lying in bed at 4:30 in the morning wide awake. It’s not like I wasn’t tired, I was. It’s not like I had gone to bed so early that my sleep schedule changed, it didn’t. I didn’t even have any caffeinated beverages (of ANY kind) for weeks, so THAT wasn’t it, either!

I was thinking through things, and those things kept me awake.

I was in my bed, which technically was a place of rest, as in “location”, but my mind was far from restful. Oddly enough, I wasn’t working through my current personal storm as much as I was reviewing my workday and what was accomplished and what wasn’t. I was thinking of how to manage “situation A” most efficiently and how to tackle “situation B” in light of circumstance X, Y and Z. Not all of my thinking was that kind of “important” work. Frankly, truth be told, I was even baking blueberry muffins, cinnamon buns and fresh rolls in my head as well. I’m sure my 8 year old would question me on which work was the “most important”! I think she’d vote for the baking, hands down! (And I think my 50 year old would, too)

Either way, my “location” of rest was not my place of rest.

It got me thinking about Jonah.

AGAIN!

The Back Story (Jonah 2)

We last left Jonah in the sea, being swallowed by a great fish.

That’s just terrifying.

Jonah has something to say about his time in the belly.

2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. ² He said,

“I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me.
I called to you from the land of the dead, and Lord, you heard me!
³ You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves.
⁴ Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have driven me from your presence.
    Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.’

⁵ “I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head. ⁶ I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth, whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, snatched me from the jaws of death!
⁷ As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple.
⁸ Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies.
⁹ But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.”

¹⁰ Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach.

Science and History

A submarine’s ability to handle water pressure mainly depends on the material used to build the subs and specifically, the hull. Sometime around 1620, British King James I watched Drebbel’s oar-manned submarine (a.k.a. a modified rowboat) dive 15 feet beneath River Thames. It was coated in greased leather. (History)

Current submarines vary in depth-talents. The Titanium-hulled, nuclear-powered Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets can withstand significantly deeper dives than most American nuclear subs, going down as far as 1,020 metres (3,350 feet) in the Norwegian Sea on 4 August 1984. The US DSRV (Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle) was built to rescue the survivors of a sunken submarine and has a test depth of 1,500m (5,000 ft). (Naval Post) These machines cost millions of dollars to make and countless research and development hours before humans ever try them out.

Thousands of years earlier, the fish and whales were the ONLY deep sea divers. They could reach to the depth of the oceans simply by managing their cell membrane toxicity and by allowing the extreme pressure change the interaction (or lack of) between water and the phospholipids “packaging” to make the sea creature float in various depths without imploding.  They also have different enzymes which change protein structures, which influence their cellular function and ultimately how deep the creature can go. (Deep Sea News)

Umm… yeah… (roll eyes). Of course, I knew that…

The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 4,920 feet (1,500 meters) and the deepest recorded point is 17,280 feet (5,267 meters). (New World Encyclopedia) The world is only BEGINNING to explore what Jonah toured millennium earlier. It’s too bad Jonah didn’t have a window seat. But my guess was that he was too preoccupied with deeper matters (yes, pun intended), than scientific research.

That is science and history surrounding Jonah’s deep sea dive. I have a million more questions, though. Like:

How deep did Jonah’s fish go? What is the pressure? At what speed would that fish have been travelling? What is the digestion process of this fish he was in? What did Jonah look like after 3 days of digestion? How long did it take him to get to Nineveh after he got vomited out on land? Did he need a recovery time after that kind of trauma? (Was their trauma???) And why in Hebrew does it say a male and female fish, and in English it only says “fish”. (I know!! The things that keep me up at night!….)

Thoughts

Truth be told, Jonah wasn’t worried about all those stats and all those details. He was stuck in the bottom of the sea, being carried along in the belly of some kind mammoth of sea creature.

He didn’t know much but He knew how he felt – distressed!

He knew where his help came from – the Lord

When he looked at his circumstances, the swirling sea, the waves, the depth and seaweed around his head, he knew there was No Way Out! He mentioned the depth of the sea several times (vs.2,3,4,5,6) – this must have been an issue for him (go figure…) He thought about the mission he was given by God (vs.8) and concluded that he will shout (not sure anyone can shout in the middle of a belly), he will sacrifice (something he needs space to do – like on a SHORE), vow (something his sailor friends did), and say “Salvation comes from the Lord”.

He kept saying “I will…” It wasn’t in his head, but he was literally going to do those thing and he needed to out of that belly to do ’em. It’s like he had a sense that his host wasn’t going to digest him fully, but that he’d be leaving the underwater tomb someday, somehow.

Jonah left in rebellion, right? The fish-swallowing-Jonah-whole thing was because of his pure disobedience, right?

Jesus, Himself, identified with what Jonah was going through when he made this statement:

 ³⁹ He said to them, “The sinful people of this day look for something special to see. There will be nothing special to see but the powerful works of the early preacher Jonah. ⁴⁰ Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of a big fish. The Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the grave also. ⁴¹ The men of the city of Nineveh will stand up with the people of this day on the day men stand before God. Those men will say these people are guilty because the men of Nineveh were sorry for their sins and turned from them when Jonah preached. And see, Someone greater than Jonah is here! (Matt. 12:39-41)

Even in Jonah’s rebellion, Jesus identified with Jonah. God uses everything, even our horrible circumstances to work things out for His purposes and His glory. Remember, my darling, this is not a “God-is-mean” kind of glory. This is so the enemy can be bested over and over again so God can reveal Himself to humans, so they will SEE that they can put their trust in Him. And once they do, they can have a deeper relationship with Him than they ever dreamed. Full of peace and assurance that God is for them and not against them. See? God’s glory is something that WE SHOULD WANT. It always benefits us, too.

But we can’t always see the brilliant light when we are in the depths of the ocean. When we feel like we are fully surrounded by stinking seaweed situations and floods of rotting fish circumstances and NO WAY OUT.

Are we willing to say “Salvation comes from the Lord”. (When there is no salvation in sight?)

He got to talking about salvation by coming to the end of himself and embracing what God said. Jonah kept talking in past tense. I was… I used to…. etc. He stuttered for a moment, looking at his circumstances again, but then focused on God again.

When he fully gave his heart, he was released to be who God called him to be. In this case, it was an evangelist.

If you think, in your discouragement, that you can’t be used. Think again. Remember Jesus identified with Jonah being in the belly of the fish. We ALL know why THAT happened…

We have to come to a place (not location) of rest. We can lay all down at the feet of Jesus. The circumstances don’t matter to Jesus. He is Sovereign over all. He is after your heart posture so He can bless you. If you don’t know how to posture your heart to “make this happen”, then lean on Jesus, so you can hear His heartbeat and learn. You can only lean and hear His heartbeat from a place of rest.