03/15/2026
 Jonah learned as all of us do that our perspective is either a passport or a prison .
“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.’ I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God.”
Jonah 2:2-4, 6
“In the middle of my distress, when everything inside me felt like it was collapsing, I finally cried out to God—and He heard me.
I felt like I was at the very bottom emotionally, like I was trapped in a dark place with no way out. The pressure of everything around me felt overwhelming, like waves crashing over my mind and heart.
For a moment I felt abandoned, like I had lost connection with God. But even in that darkness, I made the choice to turn my attention back toward Him.
I felt like I had sunk as low as a person can go, like I was locked in a place of despair. But somehow, God lifted me up out of that pit and gave my life back to me.”
“Jonah’s prayer is the language of someone in deep distress. He describes feeling like he’s drowning, buried, trapped in the depths. Psychologically, that’s what trauma or overwhelming stress feels like—like the waves of life are crashing over you and there’s no escape. But the turning point happens when Jonah says, ‘Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ In other words, he intentionally turns his focus back toward God. And that shift happens while he’s still inside the fish.
His perspective changes before his circumstances change. And often that’s where healing begins.”