A Prayer Chapel Unlike Any Other

Jonah was about to have a whale of a tale or two as he saw this monster coming right at him smacking his lips!

Jonah had just been swallowed by the great fish and he was in the belly of that fish three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17). The disobedient prophet now found himself in a rather unique chapel of prayer. “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly”- Jonah 2:1. Hear now his prayer from this unique prayer chapel.

“I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of sheol I cried, and You heard my voice. For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. Then I said, I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple. The waters encompassed me even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth closed with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought my life up out of the pit, O Lord my God. WHEN MY SOUL FAINTED WITHIN ME, I REMEMBERED THE LORD AND MY PRAYER WENT UP TO YOU, INTO YOUR HOLY TEMPLE.

“Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord”- Jonah 2:2-9. This prayer was uttered in the darkness of this unique prayer chapel but it moved the Lord enough to speak to the fish and it barfed up the distasteful prophet onto dry land (Jonah 2:10). It would have seemed, at that time, that Jonah had learned a lot from his voyage to the bottom of the sea. Jonah had encountered the “Tomb of Self“. How about you? Have you ever been there?