“And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”

Jonah 1:17a (ESV)

The biblical story of Jonah is a popular one. Almost every church-going adult and child and many unchurched people can recall the basics of the story. God tells Jonah to travel to an evil city (Nineveh) and call the people to turn from their sin. Jonah finds a boat sailing in the opposite direction and hops aboard. God sends a storm that threatens to destroy the boat. After a great deal of panic among the crew, Jonah admits that the storm is punishment from God for his disobedience. He asks the men to throw him overboard and they happily oblige him.

At this stage many people believe God sends a big fish (probably a whale, but the Bible is not clear here) as a further punishment for Jonah’s rebellion. It’s a last line of suffering for the unruly Jonah.

However, the fish was actually an instrument of salvation.

In asking the men to toss him overboard, Jonah was inviting his death. He was abandoning the relative safety of the boat for the certain doom of the sea. Jonah was not looking for salvation; he was accepting death. His defiance incensed God. The God of the storm was coming after him. The ridiculous attempt to out-run God was foiled. He had nowhere to turn.

Yet God was not quite finished with Jonah. God used the storm to change Jonah’s direction, but He was not prepared to let it take Jonah’s life. In the midst of the raging storm, God uses a large creature to rescue Jonah from death. The big, probably scary animal swallows Jonah. The fish must have been frightening, but the storm was even more ominous. Without the whale, Jonah’s story ends in the sea.

After 3 days Jonah was saved from the whale, but first he was saved by the whale. Often God uses the scary and difficult to rescue His people from the eternally disastrous. Has God ever spared you from the storm by sending you into a whale?

Take a moment or two to consider the ways God has used a difficult circumstance to rescue you from an even more disastrous one.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.

2 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

So what do we make of the times in life when we are certain God is leading in one direction and then in a moment everything changes? How do we deal with life when the plan – the one we felt was from God – evaporates?

The pregnancy ends. The house doesn’t sell on time. The job falls through. The truth is never exposed. The car doesn’t last. The money runs out. The school denies your application. The injury doesn’t heal. The surgery doesn’t correct the problem. The cancer returns.

The plan… the one you were confident came from God… the one you had built your future around… the one you were counting on… the one you told your friends about… the answer to your problems… vanishes into thin air.

The apostle Paul faced situations like these during his life and ministry. At times he planned to follow a particular travel schedule or visit a certain group, but God’s plan was different. Through these moments, he learned (and wrote about) a valuable truth that provides great hope and comfort for all of us struggling to understand times of great disappointment.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14 he reminds the church that Jesus “leads us in triumphal procession.” What an incredible thought?

God directs our lives (and ministries). From the smallest detail to the most significant change, God leads his children. Rest assured in times of the greatest uncertainty, God is in control.

God directs our lives (and ministries) on a victorious path. We are not just surviving; we are triumphant. The path of your life is a demonstration of the triumph of Christ.

Regardless of your circumstances today, walk joyfully and confidently.

From one of the best books of our generation by one of the great theologians of our generation, the following quote reveals why this 30-year-old book is still so widely read and appreciated.

“It is not for us to imagine that we can prove the truth of Christianity by our arguments; nobody can prove the truth of Christianity except the Holy Spirit, by his own almighty work of renewing the blinded heart. It is the sovereign prerogative of Christ’s Spirit to convince men’s consciences of the truth of Christ’s gospel; and Christ’s human witnesses must learn to ground their hopes of success not on clever presentation of the truth by man, but on the powerful demonstration of the truth by the Spirit.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 71

Packer’s words about God’s sovereignty in salvation actually compel me to share the gospel every time I read them for at least two reasons.

First, God’s sovereignty eases the pressure I feel to “convert” people. I find great comfort in remembering and pondering “the sovereign prerogative of Christ’s Spirit” to save. I share and God saves.

Second, God’s sovereignty gives me great confidence. I am so thankful a person’s salvation is NOT dependent on my cleverness or ability to prove truth of the gospel. Again, I share and God saves.

Betsie ten Boom lived in Holland with her father and more well-known sister Corrie at the time of the Nazi occupation during World War II. All three were imprisoned and the ladies eventually taken to a concentration camp. Betsie and her father died in earthly captivity. After years of imprisonment, Corrie was released and later wrote much about her family’s experiences in the popular book, The Hiding Place.

Prior to their arrest, they lived out their Christian faith by providing refuge for people who were hiding from the Nazi oppressors. For more than a year this family housed as many as seven people illegally. As the ten Booms ministered to these Jews and members of the Dutch underground, they trusted God in remarkable ways.

One night Betsie and Corrie awoke as German and English planes were fighting over their city. They huddled downstairs drinking tea until the commotion subsided. As Corrie climbed back into bed she cut her hand on a piece of shrapnel that had fallen through the roof and landed on her pillow. Racing back downstairs to Betsie for help, she couldn’t help but think of what might have been.

But before she could finish her sentence, Betsie stopped her cold with the life-altering application of a powerful truth…

“There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety. . . . Let us pray that we may always know it!”

Betsie ten Boom, quoted from Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place, 70

Do you worry about the ‘if’s’ in life? Or do you trust completely in the safety of God’s sovereignty?