Pastor Taylor Shippy - Jonah 1:4-2:10; Mark 8:34-36; James 1:2-4
For the longest time, I thought nothing substantial happened inside the belly of the fish. I had heard the Jonah story enough times, and I figured it was simply a means to get Jonah back on the right path towards Nineveh. An elaborate U-turn, if you will? A cul-de-sac in the plot for God to put Jonah on the straight and narrow. And unfortunately, I think a lot of retellings of the Jonah story, especially the ones meant for kids, seem to gloss over this part of the story… But the actual Bible story doesn’t do that! It doesn’t fast-forward through the three days and nights in the fish. It lingers… it dwells… it lives in the uncomfortablility and pain and isolation and struggle of a ‘trough’ moment in the life of this particular prophet… And the question is why?
