God Motivation and the Fish Appointment

And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17).  If bad fish to us tastes fishy, I can only imagine what Jonah must have tasted like to that fish...sour perhaps?  There's a really awful, dry joke in there somewhere, but I'm not going to fish it out.  At any rate, this is the first of four appointments that God brings into Jonah's life.  Simply to refresh us on the story, Jonah had received a direct call from God to head to the wicked city of Nineveh to preach truth to them.  Jonah's response was to run from God by getting on a boat headed in the opposite direction, a boat that met a terrible storm with a crew that had to unload Jonah for it to quit...really, for their own rescuing.  But the running prophet still had a job to do and God intended for Jonah to do it.

It's true that often times God gives us jobs to do that we run away from--jobs that He then gives to someone else.  But as much as Jonah might have thought that he had gotten off scot-free, that he would simply meet his demise in the swirling ocean, God had another plan and it was a wild one.  He appointed a fish to swallow Jonah, carry him around for three dark days, and then toss its cookies (and its man) onto the shore.  That's one heck of a divine appointment and it came as a multi-layered rescue--a rescue for Jonah, a rescue for the people of Nineveh, and a rescue for you and I if we're willing to accept it.  It was obviously a rescue for Jonah since he went from being dead in a stormy, breathless sea to alive in the air pocket of a fish stomach.  It was a rescue for the people of Nineveh because God used Jonah's words to them later to bring repentance into their hearts instead of instant flames to their city and souls.  The appointed fish is a rescue for us if we hear in the story that running from God is fruitless and that no moment is too late to experience His saving grace.  It's furthermore a rescue for us if we hear Jesus' words in connection to this historical event: For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here (Matthew 12:40-41).  Do you hear the significance of the story in the words of the Savior of the world?  A rescuing fish was appointed ultimately to turn our attention to the saving power of Jesus who was "swallowed up" by the earth for the saving of the people above (like Jonah's crew) and then delivered out of it in life so that wicked "Ninevites" like you and I could hear the message of truth and turn to the Author of it.  Don't miss it.  The God motivated heart is the one that hears the message of the appointed fish and runs with humble joy to the One who appointed it.