Responding to God’s Miraculous Salvation
This is the seventh devotional in our summer series on "The Miraculous Acts of God."
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’ And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” – Jonah 2:7-10
Jonah was an atypical prophet. When God asked him to spread his word to Nineveh, he disagreed, feeling the people of Nineveh didn’t deserve salvation, and ran in the opposite direction. He was nothing short of disobedient.
As he is on his way out of town, a great storm overpowers the boat he is sailing on. Knowing that God is punishing him for his disobedience, he tells the crew members to throw him overboard to spare themselves (Jonah 1:12). Eventually, the men reluctantly do what he’s asked, and in an instant, the sea calms.
As for Jonah, many of us know what happens. A whale comes and swallows him up, and there he sits for three days and three nights.
In the midst of his solitude, Jonah gets to thinking. Eventually he cries out to God for his salvation, recalling God’s character and vowing to turn back and obey his commands. In another miraculous act, God allows the fish to vomit Jonah back onto the land.
Jonah has a second chance at life to be faithful to God. What will he make of it?
Our God is a God of second chances. Throughout the Bible, we see depictions of God coming continuously to a disobedient people. Like them, we also find ourselves facing God’s call, and like them, too often we disobey his commands.
Whether it be our fear or, in the case of Jonah, our prejudices, oftentimes we think we know more than God. We think he can’t have meant for us to offer reconciliation to that person. He can’t have meant for us to go back and love the one who has done us wrong. Like Jonah, we know what he’s calling us to do, and we’re running the other way.
Jonah eventually goes to Nineveh, and God saves the community there. But instead of being humbled by God’s compassion, Jonah is angered.
In his second chance at life, Jonah still has a hard heart toward those whom God loves. In his anger, Jonah cries out to God, citing God’s compassion and love as a bad thing, saying, “That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing... I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:2).
In his anger, Jonah forgets the miraculous act God commits on his own behalf — sparing him from death in the belly of the whale. In his self-righteousness, Jonah is blind to his own sins and the compassion God has shown him. Jonah believes he is better than the people of Nineveh, but he isn’t.
As the book of Colossians tells us, we too “were once far away from God.” We were his enemies, separated from him by our own sinful thoughts and actions (Colossians 1:21). It is only because of God’s great love for us in sending Christ to die for our sins that we’ve been covered in his righteousness. We did nothing to deserve his mercy. We too are like the people of Nineveh.
When God saved us, he gave us an opportunity at a second chance at life — an opportunity to share his gracious love, compassion, and mercy to those who don’t know him. We each have a choice. How will we respond to God’s miraculous salvation?
Dominique McKay is a Ministry Associate in Washington, D.C.
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