Jonah 2:1-3

Jonah's sad situation in life -- Jonah 2:1-3: Running from God caused Jonah to find himself in a horrible state. He was in the fish's belly. Imagine the horrors that you would feel being in the guts of a tremendously large fish. This fish took Jonah into the heart of the sea. He felt that he was in Sheol or the abyss. In the fishes belly the currents and waves passed over him. The words of Jonah 2:1 remind us of what a mighty God we serve. He had the power to prepare a great fish to swallow Jonah and then He had the power to preserve Him in the fish's belly. "Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish's belly." No right thing is impossible for our mighty God. Concerning a camel going through the eye of a needle Jesus said, "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26) By His great power the Lord took care of Jonah while he was cut off from normal life for that time.

Jonah sought the Lord and prayed unto Him. He cried in his distress to God. He called upon Him for help. Jonah had to know that he was being preserved miraculously by the hand of God. However, this did not lesson the terribleness of his situation. Now he must deal with this experience plus the emotions of running from God. Jonah cried from hell or Sheol. He was using the word in the sense of being subterranean. He cried out of his distress to the Lord, and the heard him. Jonah's concept about what was happening was good. He did not say the mariners cast him into the sea. He said to God, "For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me; all Your waves and Your billows passed over me." He knew that what was happening was happening by the authority of God.