Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.

What do we do when they come to the end of ourselves — of our pride, our possessions, our rights, our control, and our stubborn resistance to surrender to God — when we find there is nothing else we can do? Most of the time we pray.

Jonah, here, has hit rock bottom. As he was sinking to the bottom of the sea, God wouldn’t just let him die in peace. He was rescued by a big fish. He spent three days and three nights in the stomach of the fish. In the stomach was also the decomposing bodies of other marine animals the fish had eaten. Not the ideal place to be found. There was nothing Jonah could do, and he found himself reaching out to the one he was running away from.

What frustration, pain, heartache, disaster, cruel treatment, have you experienced, and how have you dealt with this? God is waiting to walk through it with you. Will you reach out to him?

Life is difficult. Full of heartache, challenging relationships, and sometimes success reversals for no apparent reason. Our perspective on life makes all the difference. We can choose to reach out to God in prayer and receive his fruits of the Spirit to live life under his reign and in his power. Or we can try to live life on our own, measuring up, trying to deal with the challenges in our own feeble ways.

Too many times I leave God out of the decision-making process.

Lord, help me to seek you first. Thank you that you never give up on me, and you keep pursuing me over and over and over again. Thank you for the grace that you showed Jonah. Thank you for the grace you’ve shown me.