Skip to main content

Journey with Jonah: Strange Salvation

Episode 2 of our Journey with Jonah. (The blurry photo is of the performance of parts 1 & 2 in Dublin in 2004 that started me on the blogging pathway)
You really won't believe it! Where had I got to? Oh yes... I told you how I ended up doing the doggy paddle in the middle of the Mediterranean. God had asked me to go to Nineveh and I just happened to take a wrong turning... Ended up heading in the opposite direction... In a boat headed for Tarshish. But God soon caught up with me and whipped up a storm just to grab my attention, and before I knew it the sailors had grabbed me and threw me over the side to keep God quiet. So there I was... Fishfood... Literally, as it happened.
Have you ever had the misfortune of listening to fishermen telling you tales of the one that got away? It was this big, they tell you... When you know fine rightly it was this big. Well I've got a story that will top any of their's... Not so much the one that got away as the one that got me... How big was it? It was that big! Big enough to swallow me in one gulp, and, let’s face it, I'm quite a mouthful.
"You were swallowed by a fish..." you say. "Do you think I'm going to swallow that!" Well, I don't care... I know that it happened and that's good enough for me. If I hadn't been swallowed by that fish I would have drowned. 
When the sailors threw me into the sea I called on the Lord to save me, in between gulping down big mouthfuls of seawater. But although I prayed to God, I didn't expect him to hear my prayer. Why should he listen to me when I hadn't listened to him? I'd got what I deserved. But he did save me. Although, I'll admit, it was a strange salvation.
But strange salvation or not, all that I could do was to sing a song of praise to the Lord from the belly of that fish. Not too many people have done that, I would think. I didn't know, I didn't care what lay ahead, I just praised God... But the next thing I knew the fish was being sick; it must have been something it had eaten... And it vomited me up on the beach. Honest.
Well, not everyone gets a second chance like that, so I'd better not make the same mistake again. So does anyone know which way it is to Nineveh?

Shalom
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that
2 comments
Read more

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65
3 comments
Read more

Living under the Empire... (2) Where is Babylon?

We were driving back from school last week, talking about books that we had been reading and my younger son, Ciaran, asked me "Where is Babylon?" I have to confess that my history is better than my geography, and I said that it no longer exists as an inhabited city, but its ruins were to the north west of the current capital of Iraq, Baghdad. When I checked however, I discovered that it is actually about 50 miles south of Baghdad and the modern town is the administrative centre of the province of Babil... But just as the modern city is but a shadow of the historic capital of 2 ancient empires, first under Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE and then the "Neo-Babylonian" empire (under Nebuchadnezzar etc) in the 6th century BCE, so the earthly Babylonian empire/s was/were fleeting in comparison to the enduring metaphorical idea of Babylon. The original Empire under Hammurabi was probably the ultimate origin of some of the early Biblical stories, including the &quo
Post a Comment
Read more