Rediscovering Jonah: The Secret of God's Mercy

by Timothy J. Keller

All of this is ironic. Jonah was fleeing God because he did not want to go and show God’s truth to wicked pagans, but that is exactly what he ends up doing.

Ha!, God is funny!… It always worked. What God is going to do, he will do.

It is only when you reach the very bottom, when everything falls apart, when all your schemes and resources are broken and exhausted, that you are finally open to learning how to completely depend on God.

So True!

you never realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. You must lose your life to find your life (Matthew 10:39).

If Jonah was to begin finally to ascend, both in the water and in faith, he had to be brought to the very end of himself.

Hard but truthful. Necessary.

The usual place to learn the greatest secrets of God’s grace is at the bottom.

And from there, with Him, there’s only one way. UP.

But it is not simply being at the bottom that begins to change Jonah but prayer at the bottom.

Pray. Always. At the top or at the bottom. But always pray.

Many people sing “Amazing Grace” and give lip service to the idea, but that grace has not profoundly changed them.

Boom!

we find grace not at the high points of our lives but in the valleys and depths, at the bottom.

He is lost, condemned, and unable to unlock the doors of his prison. And yet God saves him.

Jonah begins to praise God and dedicate himself before he has any assurance that he will escape from the fish

That’s the real deliverance, not the release from the fish.