"And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish..."
Jonah 1:17-2:1 (NIV)
There are seasons in our lives when everything seems so small. So restricted, so limited, so confined. We feel cut off from God, and estranged from people. Opportunities slip away, and doors seem to close in our faces. It's times like these when we feel least like calling on God. Even if we were to stretch out, we're uncertain of whether he would hear us. How do we worship in these seasons? How do we approach a God who seems so far away from our confined, suffocated lives?
// THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Jonah was a prophet on the run from God. He ran from his calling, commandeered a boat and headed for a far off, trouble-free destination. A man of God with a death-wish, he was thrown off the vessel into dark and stormy water. His life was spared, but he found himself in what has become an infamous predicament.
As Jonah lay in the belly of this oversized sea-creature, things would have looked grim. Talk about feeling confined! Once off to the wide, spacious, idyllic and distant land of Tarshish, Jonah found himself in a watery prison, unable to escape. How Jonah responds in this situation is amazingly helpful for us in navigating the confined seasons in our own lives, and gives us a roadmap for worship in the darkest and driest of times in the life of discipleship.
// GOD'S WORD
The first thing we notice about Jonah's prayer is that it looks strikingly like a Psalm. In fact, read alongside any one of those ancient worship-songs, Jonahs prayer would fit right in. This is because his prayer is completely filled with psalmist language. Jonah was a man who knew his Bible. Jonah was a man who was able to pray to God using the words of scripture when natural words failed him. This beautifully crafted prayer, prayed from the belly of a fish is the prayer of a man in distress, but a man who knew how to speak out the word of God in the worst of circumstances.
In a confined space it is so important to speak scripture. Our hearts and minds are already weak, and we need to draw upon the words and inspiration of something higher, something above. We need the very words of God in our mouths when all we see is the world getting in our face. The Word of God will be sometimes the only source of comfort, when no sound or sight can ease the pain.
// THANKSGIVING
Biblical psalms fall roughly into one of two main literary groups. There are firstly psalms of thanksgiving, and secondly, psalms of lament. Thanksgiving was used to celebrate God's goodness, his mighty deeds, his glory and his merciful love toward his people. On the flip-side, psalms of lament were used to express sorrow for sin, an acknowledgement of guilt, and as an expression of brokenness before God. We would expect in this situation that Jonah would craft an emotional and spontaneous cry of lament for his plight. But this psalm is structured like, and holds the content of a psalm of thanksgiving!
How liberating it is to thank God in the hardest of times, to pray and worship 'with the voice of thanksgiving'! Sometimes it is only in times of confinement when we can truly 'count our blessings'. We've been given so much, blessed by God in so many ways so there is always occasion and reason to praise. Most of all we've received the most precious gift of eternal life in Jesus and if nothing else, we thank God for his everlasting salvation.
// HOPE
The last line of Jonah's psalm is also the literary mid-point of the book. 'Salvation belongs to the Lord' is the big idea of the book of Jonah. It is this truth that the prophet holds onto, no matter how dark things got in the belly of the beast. Worship is a language of hope, a song of trust, a declaration of faith. We believe in a God who restores hope to a lost and broken world! No matter how confined our space, how dark our moment, we believe that 'salvation belongs to the Lord', and we hold on to that promise until we see it fulfilled.
Our lives will be nudged by times of uncertainty, frustration and darkness, but to worship through these times with the word of God, a voice of thanksgiving and a heart full of hope will mean that we will be resurrected out of the belly of that fish in victory and newness of life!