By: Al Tichenor

Jonah is not a fish tale or colored as desperately as we think. From the deep, Jonah cries out, not in terror, but in praise…he has realized that rather than the deep, it’s a dramatic undersea rescue the likes of which Jacques Cousteau would marvel. As Jonah’s story ends, he still is a petulant prophet but his mission, set forth by God, has most astonishingly revived Nineveh and its king and rescued the innocents of the city, some 60,000 children.

If this is your “first rodeo” where you’re having sinking feelings, you need to “cowboy” up, as they say in our World Famous Clovis, California Rodeo. Jonah’s first ride down into the deep brought him, as a prophet of God, into close proximity to the shrouds of desperation as the sea weeds grasped for his soul, seeking to secure their victim. Jonah was one that realized the Lord’s deliverance when it was presented.

The depths brought his focus sharply to his own life. Now here’s something that escapes the average cowboy–Jonah knew that it was a designer tempest, custom crafted for him. He didn’t know that the “great fish” waited. Who could have guessed the outcome, a three-day submarine cruise with the “tan,” or at least bleach-out, to prove it.

What a story, what a spectacle! A man, probably mottled with white bleached patches of skin, hair mostly gone…and probably with the possibility of an attitude. “Forty days and you’ve had it!” he may have cried–even dispassionately. You’ll have to read the whole book to see. His warning was enough to dissuade the king and all Nineveh. The Bible says that 60,000 thousand children were delivered among the Nineveh’s population.

God always goes to the depths needed. Some drown, some don’t. Some choose a chance outcome. Some even realize, when they ask, that God has a fish waiting. A city of blessing in need of your willingness awaits the outcome of your “designer storm”. God loves you and all those chosen, especially that special one who alone looks to you today.