Sometimes it takes a crisis for us to see clearly. We can be so stuck in our thinking we need our world to be shaken up so that we can see life from a fresh perspective. That is certainly the case for the prophet Jonah. In one of the most famous stories in the Bible, Jonah tries to run from God. Jonah believes his best life will be found running from God rather than to God. That is until he finds himself at the point of death in the belly of a fish. It’s there for the first time in the story that Jonah sees the world clearly.

In chapter two, Jonah prays this to God:

⁸“Those who cling to worthless idols
turn away from God’s love for them.”

Jonah has been clinging to what he now sees as worthless. Things that he thought would bring him life but have in fact shut him off from knowing and experiencing God’s love. We grab onto our independence, popularity, success, ideas and we foolishly think that is where life and love are found. But as we grip more tightly onto all these things and as we try and find life there, we let go of God who is the true source of life. Sometimes it takes a crisis to recognise that the things we have been grabbing hold of don’t satisfy, that they leave you feeling hollow and empty. In his grace and love for you, God may be taking you to that place so that you can see clearly. That you will be able to find real hope, and real confidence. It’s humbling. But it is there where true life is found. Jesus was once asked to give proof of his authority.

In Mathew 12 Jesus replied:

³⁹A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

You might be at the point of crisis, but you are not there alone and without hope. God didn’t provide a fish for you and me, he provided the resurrected Jesus. He provided the defeat of death and the hope of new life. It may take a crisis to loosen our grip on the idols we have been holding so firmly to, but it is there, at the end of ourselves, we will discover God’s love for us. It’s there where we will realise that life is found running to God, not away.