Jonah 2: Prayer – in a dark place

v. 1 “inside the fish Jonah prayed”   I can't think of a more unlikely, unpleasant, or compelling setting for a prayer, than this. 

Let's face it –  it is unlikely.  I guess you have heard, as I have, stories of sailors being swallowed by whales:  James Bartley, buried in Gloucester in 1909 was described as a “Modern-Day Jonah” although his story is disputed and doesn't prove the Jonah story.  Scientists don't think there is air in a fish’s or whale's stomach – though they believe a man could survive in a whale’s lung. The point is not that the story of Jonah is plausible.  The point is that it is implausible: it had to be a miracle.  Either he survived, miraculously.  Or he died and was raise – miraculously.

And in fact, in his prayer Jonah reckoned himself as  a dead man. 

Can we pray in the unlikely places – where it looks like even survival is unlikely.  Can we pray with an eye to the future when we are facing a reality that suggests there isn’t a  future? Can we pray with the faith that says “It's Friday – but Sunday's coming”? (Good Friday, hoep hangs of a cross, waiting for Easter Sunday).  Can we pray for people to turn back to God in an environment where people are turning away from God in vast numbers? Can we pray for the triumph of God's Kingdom in a world where nations including our own seem to be falling apart?  Can we pray for healing when all looks hopeless? Can we pray for that family member to find faith, while they continue to walk away from faith? 

And it is unpleasant.  Just about unpleasant as you could get.  Pitch dark. frightening, filthy and possible stinking; nobody likes to keep company with a part-digested meal – either one's own or someone else's. Can we pray when we are in unpleasant and painful situations?

But it is compelling, isn't it.  The very horror of it, the very unpleasantness of it, the very real danger and unlikeness of survival, all makes it the more urgent to pray.  There isn't very much you can do.  (No internet; no-one else to talk to; you can't read your bible, you have no chance of cutting your way out even if you have a knife.)  All you can do is call out to God.

And how Jonah prayed!

This is very much a prayer of faith. 
It is written in the past tense.  Verse 2 sums it up. “in my distress I called to the

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Lord, and he answered – Lord, you answered!   It's both a statement of faith, a testimony and a prayer of praise.

In fact the Old Testament doesn’t' recognise our slightly artificial separation between praise and prayer, as though they were different things. To pray is to reach out to God, to connect with him.  How can you connect to God without acknowledging who he is, praising and worshipping him? 

Jonah is able to recognise that his experience of the last few days, the last few minutes – running away from God, the storm, being thrown into the sea,  has been a time of separation from God, of being spiritually and physically at death's door.  He quotes a great deal from the Psalms, including Ps 42. 7:  “all your waves and breakers swept over me.”  His inner life and his very physical life have been in mortal danger. 

In the midst of it, Jonah recognises God's sovereignty.   (v. 3) “You threw me into the sea. Your waves; your breakers.”   (v. 3)   And “you, Lord my God,  brought my life up from the pit.”  (v. 6)  In the midst of it all – even Jonah's own sin and blindness – God has been at work.  And God is still on Jonah's case. 

So Jonah is able to be confident that God who has been at work, will continue to be at work. “You have, so I will...” (v. 4, cf v 8)   The story of God's salvation in his immediate past, of God's sovereignty that is able even to encompass Jonah's mistakes and sin, means that Jonah is able to anticipate God's continuing salvation – even in the place where he finds himself, in the stifling airless atmosphere of the fish's stomach.   So in this dark place, he looks for help from God's holy temple – maybe the temple in Jerusalem, though more likely for  an Israelite, the dwelling of God in the heavens. 

This is a prayer of confession, repentance and commitment.
Verse 8: Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies (NLT)  But the words s translated “ worthless idols” mean literally “Lying vanities” - the word is the same one used at the beginning of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity”.  It can mean a  mere breath,  vapour, something fleeting, useless, or worthless.  Calvin says they are  “all inventions with which men deceive themselves”  including Idols and false gods but also including the emptiness of going our own way, trying to run our own lives, without God,  as Jonah had done.  

So Jonah is not making a jibe against the sailors with their false Gods, or against Nineveh: he is admitting that he has put himself in the same boat as they, turning away from his covenant relationship with the Lord, for a mere breath.  He has traded the permanent lasting gift of a relationship with God for the perishable goods of his own pleasure. 

But God has kept his hand on Jonah. So Jonah is back into his relationship with the Lord:  (v. 9) “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.'”  He doesn't want to be among those who chase after lying vanities.  I is emphatic: “I will praise you and sacrifice to you...

Jonah wants to worship the Lord – with his voice, and by bringing a sacrifice to the Lord. 

He wants to keep his vow to the Lord.  Whatever obedience the Lord requires, Jonah will give. 

His testimony is that “salvation is from the Lord.”

So that is Jonah's prayer, in a dark place.  Praise, faith, confession, commitment.  Not a word of pleading for help.  Now there is  place for saying “Lord, help!”   There is a place for making your requests known to God.  There is a place for being specific in our prayers. But there is also a place for  a prayer like this.   “Over to You, Lord!” It's the spirit of Ps 118. 17:  “I shall not die but live...” 

That's how Paul was:  At midnight, in jail in Philippi, “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them”. (Acts 16. 25) and the prison walls collapsed in an earthquake.  No wonder, later on, in other difficulties, Paul wrote to the Church in Philippi  “For I know that as you pray for me and the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance.” (Phil 1. 19 NLT)

You could sum up Jonah's prayer in this way:  “Lord, I have been in a dark, dangerous and frightening place – indeed I still am.  But you're in charge, not me.  You can even use the mess I make, and I can already see you at work; so I know you will bring me through this. And Lord, we all need to put you, not temporary things, first – and I've been chasing the wrong things.  But Lord I will worship you.  I will do what you want.  Salvation is from you.” 

Or in the powerful words of the Lord's prayer: “Father, in Heaven may you Name be honoured.  May your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Give us today the bread we need, forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil , for the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, Lord, forever”. 

So how do we pray in the dark place? The place where -- like the sea in Hebrew

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thinking -- demons are all around?  God is OK with us simply praying "Help!"  God is OK with us presenting our requests to him. But he doesn't want us to panic or to plead for help. He wants us to pray with a robust faith that's rooted in who he is and what he's already done. And he wants us to pray with submission: with repentance and commitment.

And two certainties will follow:
1. Jonah trusts God and wants to obey him. But he still has issues with Nineveh. He is still doing God's will through gritted teeth (as we shall see.)   Like Jonah, we will still have stuff that needs sorted out.
2. And the miracles happen. Jonah survives and is eventually puked up onto a beach in Palestine, to continue his journey.  God will answer! God's on our case and will act.

© Gilmour Lilly 2016