🌿BREATHE TRUTH🌿
“I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and He answered me. I called to You from the land of the dead, and Lord, You heard me!” —Jonah 2:1-2
🌿LIVE THE REAL TRUTH🌿
Joseph is thrown into an empty cistern in the wilderness where his brothers hope will be his doom. “He’ll die without our laying our hands on him.” (Genesis 37:22)
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Jeremiah is taken into an empty well filled only with mud where the king’s officials hope he will be forgotten. “They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death when there us no longer any bread in the city.” (Jeremiah 38:9)
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Jonah is tossed into the raging sea by sailors on the boat he’s fleeing from God where he is swallowed by a great fish. “I sank beneath the waves and the waters closed over me.” (Jonah 2:5)
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Joseph, Jeremiah, and Jonah all experience literal pits of danger and disaster where they are unsure of the outcome. They arrive there at the hands of other people like Joseph because of his jealous brothers, Jeremiah because of his vengeful enemies, or Jonah because of his rejection of God. There, at the bottom of a gross cistern or a gargantuan fish, they find themselves in the land of the dead, a place where light doesn’t flourish and the love of God seems far. In the land of the dead, hopelessness rips the spirit like daggers in a dart game you wished you weren’t in and grips the heart to explode.
Most of us will not find ourselves in the same physical entrapments like these three, but we may encounter a darkness or a depression that is potentially just as spiritually oppressive.
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Not confined by our circumstances.
Walls may physically confine Joseph, Jeremiah, and Jonah. But in Christ, no walls are too high, too deep, too wide, or too great that God cannot find us or prevent us from following Him. “As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple.” (Jonah 2:7). Walls of our circumstances cannot confine worship of God.
Jonah prays and worships at the altar of God in the midst of three days void of light in a fish-like dungeon. Worship is not constrained by darkness. Worship is only restrained by our perception of darkness. Recognize that darkness as merely a different venue to elevate God in worship.
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Not darkened by darkness.
Inside the giant fish, Jonah is unable to see, but he is not blind. Physical darkness is not darkness to a believer. Despite not possessing any sunlight illumination, the Light that comes from our knowing God burns against the pervading dark.
But even in darkness, I cannot hide from you. To you, the night shines as bright as the day. Darkness and light are the same to You. (Psalm 139:12)
There is no darkness that God cannot see or seek us out. Jonah, sitting inside the fish in complete darkness, is in plain sight of God. To God, darkness is nothing. In your darkness, God knows where you are, understands how you got there, and is planning your rescue. Your darkness isn’t darkened by the dark when you have God.
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In the land of the dead, one question simmers in the spirit: Are you there, God? What we see in Joseph, Jeremiah, and Jonah’s predicament is a resounding yes.
Jesus spends three days in darkness in the land of the dead after his crucifixion. He comprehends our fear, frailty, and fragility in the dark. Just as Jesus rises from the darkness of the tomb, so will we. See the Real Truth in your darkness. See the Real Truth in a new light after you rise from the darkness.
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Copyright 2019