1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
brought my life up from the pit.
7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”
10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land."
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last week thinking about my pandemic pregnancy and my pandemic maternity leave. Someone asked me at a gathering in our building garden this weekend how it was having a baby during COVID and I said, "It was awful actually."
When I think about that response, it reveals to me how much grace I have forefeited by clinging to the idol of comfort. I have a healthy baby, a loving partner. I didn’t get COVID when I went to the hospital. I had lots of help in the early days of my child being born. I work at a company that has a great maternity leave policy so I didn’t have to work during those first 12 weeks of my child’s life.
But instead of singing a song of thanksgiving for these things, I forefeit the joy of a new child by being wrapped up in my comfort idol that tells me that a non-covid pregnancy and baby would have been easier.
This passage tells us when we cling to things that are not Jesus IT IS WORTHLESS
I forfeit the grace that Jesus offers me when I do that. The grace of my salvation but also the grace he offers me to get through my day and the challenges that lie in front of me.
So I'm thinking today about these three things-
What idols have I been clinging to in the pandemic?
What grace have I forfeited because I've been clinging to this idol?
How does the salvation that comes from the Lord speak to what I need?
