I came across this in my Bible reading today:
Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.14 Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
17 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. – Jonah 1:11-17
This is a familiar story, and a familiar feeling that Jonah experienced: we don’t want people to be saved; we don’t want God’s blessing to come down on our enemies, and that’s a major mistake for us. Why would we not want God’s mercy to flourish, even in the hearts of the most wicked? We’re prideful sinners, that’s why. And that was Jonah’s motivation for fleeing to Tarshish. There is much that can be learned from the story of Jonah, and particularly this first chapter. But today I will focus on one major aspect alone: we often think it was the whale that saved Jonah, but in fact, it was the storm.
Now, to be clear – the whale certainly did save his life. He would have drowned had it not been for the miracle of the whale in the right place at the right time. And in that time of reflection of dense reflection, he cried out to the Lord. But the thing that saved him first was the storm itself. What if Jonah had just been allowed to flee from the Lord? That was his intent – he was over it. He was going to run as far as he could from the Lord, and God put an obstacle in his way – a terrible obstacle, a tragedy, to bring him back to himself. We wrestle with how to think of terrible news all the time – we say, ‘why o Lord?’ And we would be as arrogant as Jonah if we claimed to know the answers to these questions. But what we do know is that God allows hardship, and in fact, desires it for our spiritual growth. No one wants to hear that – but that’s the consistent reality for God’s people in God’s Word.
Then of course we see the parallels of the Jonah story in the story of Jesus in the storm: there are too many parallels to mention – but Jonah was thrown into the sea in order to save the other sailors, and Jesus, the true Jonah, was thrown into the storm of our sin so that we could be saved. He was in the belly of for three days, just like Jonah. Give thanks that the Lord will give you small storms to sanctify you, while removing the greatest possible storm from your life – sin and death.