February 7 | Bible in a Year: Leviticus 1-3; Matthew 24:1-28

From the Depths

From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. Jonah 2:2

READ Jonah 2:1–7

From the bottom of the ocean, Harrison cried to God to save him. A freak wave had overturned his tugboat off the coast of Nigeria, and it sank rapidly. The rest of the crew, unable to escape, drowned, but Harrison had found an air pocket in a bathroom. A man of faith, he meditated on Psalms, thought of his family and prayed for his life. After three dark days, a rescue diver got a massive shock when his torchlight found a moving hand instead of a corpse. God had answered Harrison’s prayer.

Harrison’s experience was eerily similar to Jonah’s, as was the desperate prayer for rescue when he was about to drown. Jonah went down through the ocean, “into the depths, into the very heart of the seas” (Jonah 2:3). He cried to God: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me” (v. 2). For three days, Jonah’s ‘air pocket’ was a big fish, and so he too was spared death.

There is mystery in suffering, and we don’t know why Harrison was freed but the rest of the crew drowned. What we do know is that God hears our desperate pleas and loves us. Even death is not the end. Jesus went to the very depths of death for three days to bring us resurrection life. Today if you feel like you’re drowning, call out to our merciful God.

By Tanya Marlow

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT

Prophets Jonah, Hosea, and Amos ministered to the Northern Kingdom of Israel when Jeroboam II was king (782–753 BC). Although Jeroboam was unfaithful, God still helped him to successfully push the Assyrians out of Israel (2 Kings 14:23–28). When God called Jonah to minister to Nineveh, a city in Assyria, Jewish nationalistic zeal was running high. Jonah initially refused to proclaim a message of salvation to an enemy nation (Jonah 1:1–3). When he finally obeyed, the Assyrians repented (3:6–10), and God relented from punishing them ( 4:1–2). But the repentance of the Assyrians was short-lived. Soon a resurgent Assyria attacked Israel (2 Kings 15:19–20, 29). Within three decades of Jonah, Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel (722 BC) and advanced menacingly towards Judah (2 Kings 17:1–6; 18:9–12). God then raised up Nahum who prophesied against Nineveh, proclaiming her inevitable downfall ( Nahum 1:1; 2:3–10; 3:1–7).