Are You Listening?
and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.” Jonah 2:2 NASB
Depth of Sheol – I’ve been there. Jonah and I apparently took the same escape plan. We ended up in Sheol – the dead place. Maybe you know that place too. We started out with good intentions. But they weren’t God’s instructions. We thought, “I just have to take care of myself.” We planned a way out of the pressing obligations and commitments that burdened our souls. We imagined that a trip away from home would solve our problems. We just needed some time off, some time “free” of taking on the care of others. What Oswald Chambers terms a “moral vacation.”
And along the way, we died.
Jonah is a story of consciousness in death. Jonah cries out to God from the place of the dead. And God hears him. Whoever said that God can’t rescue from the grave never read Jonah. “But wait,” you object. “This is just metaphor. Jonah really isn’t dead. He just feels that way.” Oh, and I suppose three days in the belly of a fish isn’t dead either, right? Or maybe that’s just a metaphor too.
There are some reasons to think of the entire story of Jonah as a piece of fiction designed to teach a lesson about the repentance of Gentiles. If we view the book in this way, then statements about crying out from Sheol are merely psychological illustrations. But I prefer to think of Jonah as a real person. Maybe it is just fiction, but the way that Jonah acts seems to me to be very much the way that I act. And I have every confidence that if God wants to bring Jonah back from Sheol, He can do just that. Yeshua seemed to think so too.
Jonah’s story provides us with some very important lessons. First, we discover that there is no escape from God, even in Sheol. Secondly we discover that God’s care and concern doesn’t stop at the grave. Thirdly, we also discover that His purposes for each of us reach beyond the edge of our lives. And finally, we realize that attitude makes all the difference. Even in a fight with the Lord.
There are some days when I really need to know that God hears me in the worst places I could ever be. In the depths of my experience of the dead, when I cry out in desperation for rescue, God hears me. When I reach the place where I am as good as dead, where there is nothing left of my self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency, He still hears me. I need Jonah’s story because I need to know that rescue is possible even when my own attitudes and actions put me in the grave. He is the God of the living, even among the dead.
Topical Index: Sheol, dead, rescue, Jonah 2:2
Skip,
I listened to your words today. “When I reach the place where I am
as good as dead, where there is nothing left of my self-satisfaction and
self-sufficiency, He still hears me.”
Of course He still hears. And perhaps He’s hearing you just where He
wants you.
Oswald Chambers writes: “But if you allow Him to take you to the end
of your self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him to
Jerusalem.” (Lk 18:31)
He further states: “It’s not what we bring with us, but what God puts
into us.”
God’s toughest assignment with me was getting me to submit
my self-sufficiency for His humility. He’s still working on it!
His Word kept poring on me. “and have put on the new man who is
renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who
created him. . .” Col 3:10
His Word kept inviting me. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls.” Mat 11:29
John the Baptist best captured it: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Jn 3:30
And as we go decreasingly, He remains “all ears”!
Rich, thank you for these beautiful words of Love to Skip!! I too have been blessed in reading them!
Skip,
I keep coming back to this writing because something isn’t lining up in my mind. Your statement, “Jonah is a story of consciousness in death. Jonah cries out to God from the place of the dead.”, seems to contradict your previous writings on this subject: Nyquil Sheol and Unsettling Questions, in which you state that once we are dead, there is no longer any consciousness–we are simply asleep. If that is so, then we have to do some explaining about Jonah (and as well, many other verses which have been pointed out in the comments sections of the two Today’s Words listed above).
Shalom Rick, 🙂 I am so glad with TW that we can still cry out to YHWH when we are dead! Would that be vain presumption? I hope not, as Skip pointed out that Jonah was dead being 3 days in the whale’s belly, yet he was alive. that would be resurrected life! But, Jonah did cry out to YHWH from the whale’s belly. HalleluYAH!
Some things are beyond our grasp/understanding, and this may be one of that, as indeed once we stopped breathing, we would be considered dead, yet at times we hear testimonies of folks in that state to respond to familiar voices and requests.
That would be only according to ABBA’s purposes, surely.
Shalom.