Your Kingdom Come — The Prayer of Jonah

Jonah runs from God's call to Nineveh, and grace pursues him through a storm, the sea, and the belly of a great fish. From that darkness he prays, and the message draws four lessons from Jonah 2 about crying out, looking up, asking for help, and turning back in obedience. A central thread is that God hears and answers, but rarely in the form we would script. No one in distress prays to be swallowed by a fish, yet the fish was the rescue. The teaching offers a personal testimony of childhood prayers answered differently and, in hindsight, better than asked. One prayer, however, is always answered the same way: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You need not reach rock bottom or the belly of a fish first, and Jonah's three days foreshadow the tomb and the resurrection.