“I called to the Lord out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
3 You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
how[a] shall I look again
upon your holy temple?’
5 The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
6 at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
O Lord my God.
7 As my life was ebbing away,
I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
8 Those who worship vain idols
forsake their true loyalty.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”
Jonah 2:2-9
Sometimes, right after someone does something for us that we truly appreciate, we offer our thanks. It is the polite thing to do.
The story of the Jonah has a moment when the run-away prophet offers a prayer of thanksgiving to God:
I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay
I am impressed that Jonah stopped to thank God for God’s care. And I am more impressed at when in his life story Jonah penned this thank you note.
Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying…
Jonah 2:1
Jonah thanked God for God’s love and care not after the turmoil and trouble was over, but in the midst of the crisis (from the belly of the whale.) As I look around, the storms of virus and hatred seem to be raging, but maybe this is when I need to stop and thank God for being here.
Prayer
Wonderful and powerful God, with the voice of thanksgiving I will sacrifice to You today. Thank You for being present in my life. Amen.
