Out Of The Depths

“But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the LORD alone.”
–  Jonah 2:9 NLT

The prophet Jonah learned this truth in the midst of a tragic struggle. He learned it in the whale’s belly, at the bottom of the sea, with weeds wrapped about his head. Most of the truth in our lives has to be learned in the midst of trouble; they must be taught to us with the aid of the rod of discipline, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of a specific thing, until first he has been tried; since there are many things to be learned in the depths which we can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the ocean, which, though we had soared high, we never could have known. He shall best meet the wants of God’s people as a preacher who has had those wants himself; he shall best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort; and he shall best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it. Jonah, when he was delivered from his great danger, when, by the command of God the fish had obediently left its great deeps and delivered its cargo upon dry land, was then capable of judging; and this was the result of his experience under his trouble–”Salvation is of the Lord.”

When we hear the word salvation, we always have in mind the salvation of the soul from eternal damnation but as the preacher Charles Spurgeon said, there is something special in that word especially when it refers to a temporary deliverance – God helping us avoid doing certain mistakes, making us understand the gospel and respond to it and helping us get through some problems that we think will be the end of the world for us.

There come times when we get trapped in certain situations and struggle much to get ourselves out only to find that our efforts are all futile.  Like Jonah, we should think things over and depend on God alone for salvation comes from him and by him alone. There are times when we experience like being in the whale’s belly and being dragged into the depths just to remind us that we should depend fully on the Lord our God.  The times when we feel helpless just brings us back to full dependence on the Lord and once we realize what we need to, like in the prophet Jonah’s case, the good Lord will command the whale to get near the shores and spit us out.  When we fully trust the Lord for our lives’ direction, he will instruct these problems and troubles that we are in to release us and show us light.  Then we are in the next higher level of our experience with the creator and savior.  We will be fit to face the world again and get through this life with obedience and full dependence on Him.