Jonah escapes again (Sheena Marx)

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Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. So the captain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives.”

Jonah 1:5-6 (NLT)

Jonah escaped into sleep whilst the storm raged! It sounds like it was ‘all hands on deck’ to keep the boat afloat, but two hands were missing from the effort… Jonah’s. The same two hands were not joined in prayer for the situation either, the prophet was ‘prayerless’. When the captain asked Jonah to call on his God, how could he tell him that he wasn’t speaking to his God?

‘Prayerless-ness’ can often be the result of ‘harbouring’ things like guilt, self pity, resentment, anger  and other powerful emotions that separate us from God. The more we pray, the more we are bringing our lives under God’s control, the last thing Jonah wanted to do!

How differently we have all dealt with the current ‘storm’ in our lives, some reaching out to others, some withdrawing and enjoying not ‘taking part’, but please don’t stop praying, join your hands with others and pray!

A prayer: Heavenly Father, save us from becoming prayerless people, by your Spirit prompt us to pray. Search us and see if there are any hidden things about which we do not want to pray and give us the courage to bring them to you. Amen

Sheena Marx

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