05/17/2026
Sometimes, whether due to our own sin or circumstances beyond us, we find ourselves in the depths of death.* It’s circumstances that seem like a hopeless pit, where we’re incapable of doing anything to change our circumstances. But that’s also when we can learn what is perhaps the most powerful prayer we’ll ever pray. . . just two words, “Lord, help.”
The Lord’s help is the only hope Jonah has. He’s not going to get out of the sea by his own power and volition. And there’s no amount of merit or good works, including repentance, that makes him deserving of such help or that obligates the Lord to help him.
But Jonah knows a couple of things about who the Lord really is. First of all, he knows that the Lord is a sovereign God whose reach and power are without limitation. Jonah knows that the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and compassion. So unlike what some of Jonah’s contemporaries believed about the underworld, Jonah knows that not even the space and time of the underworld are beyond the reach and power of the Lord. Secondly, Jonah knows that the Lord is a God whose heart beats to the tune of redemption. Jonah knows this because he’s a Hebrew who knows the story of Israel, how God redeemed the helpless Jewish people from the oppression of the mighty Egyptians.
So knowing all this to be true of God, Jonah cries out for help. As Jonah prays, “When my life was ebbing away, I remember you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple” (Jon 2:7).
Do we believe that, even when our life seems to be ebbing away, our prayers, crying out for help, will reach God?
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*This is an excerpt from the sermon I preached to the Southside Church titled “Salvation,” based on Jonah 2:1-10.
