Fish Stories

Fish Stories.

Yes, we all hear them. And some seem almost unbelievable.

You know the Jonah story. God tells him to preach repentance to Ninevah. Jonah doesn’t want to and runs away. While he is on ship a big storm comes up. Everyone soon figures out that Jonah is the problem. He is thrown into the sea and is swallowed by a big fish. After 3 days and nights the fish regurgitates Jonah onto dry land and Jonah goes to Ninevah like God says in the first place.

Wow, what a detour. At least it was not like Moses and the Children of Israel wandering around the desert for 40 years because they will not obey God. It is not such an uncommon experience for us to take our little detours when we don’t want to do what God has called us to do or go to where God has called us. Most of us know about detours because we have taken them.

After all, God may be trying to get a message through to us with the story of Jonah.. We ignore the headline: “Man catches fish.” We take notice if the headline reads: “Fish catches man.” This is akin to “man bites dog.” Now that makes headlines.

Jonah 1:17 says “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. In Jonah 2:1 it says :”Then Jonah prayed to the Lord from the stomach of the fish.”

Jonah 2:10 says:”Then the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.” This verse, I presume, means that it is hard to keep a good man down. Just kidding.

At any rate, I am not sure what the big deal is on being swallowed by a fish. We all run from God and get ourselves into horrible messes. We get ourselves into situations that we can not escape from without the help of God. We need God to make a way where there is no way. You would think we enjoyed being in the whale. While we are there we can hum Frank Sinatra’s song: “I did it my way” . At some point we get tired of “having it our way" and repeat like Jesus did in the Garden “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” But until we do it is back to being in the belly of the fish.

I read somewhere that what was going on inside of Jonah’s mind and heart was really more important than what was going on inside the fish.

So perhaps being swallowed by a fish is no big thing.

The frog prince ran from God and got himself swallowed up by an Ozarklandian institution and now lives at the Emerald Palace, which I understand is somewhat akin to living in the belly of the great fish. At some point God will hear the prayer of the Emerald Prince and view the integrity of his heart and cause him to be spat out on dry land. So big fish, whales or not –they are no big deal. Three days, that is no big deal either. Right Frog Prince?

A girl gets pregnant-the person to be born is carried around for nine months inside of her. Now, if you think it about it, that is more extraordinary then the Jonah fish story where a man is carried inside a fish. And I guarantee you getting out of that is more difficult than just being vomited onto dry land. The whole process is more miraculous, more extraordinary and more unbelievable-but it doesn’t mean that it does not happen. It happens every day. The big fish story is nothing in comparison.

Jesus compared his death and resurrection to the Jonah story. In Matthew 12:40 he said: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Another fish story. Extraordinary, but true. Our faith is built on it. My faith is built on a fish story so to speak. It doesn’t bother me one bit. I see things as extraordinary as this everyday.

You know the difference between the way we see things and the way God sees things. We see miracles as extraordinary events. But miracles are everyday common events with God. For after all, that is the way He does things.

Sometimes those fish stories, although extraordinary, just happen to be true.