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A Fish Story
(the book of Jonah)
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Illustration by Hennie Blaauw
God
told Jonah, “Go to Nineveh,
for their wickedness I know.
Tell them that they must repent.
Get ready now, and go!”
But
Jonah didn’t want to,
so he boarded a ship to flee
to Tarshish to escape the Lord,
upon the deep blue sea.
But
the Lord then sent a mighty storm
that tossed the ship about.
But Jonah’d gone below to sleep,
and their safety was in doubt.
The
men cast lots to find out
who on board was to blame.
Three times they threw the dice;
each time they fell the same.
They
asked, “Whose fault is this?”
“Where are you from? What do you
do?”
“I am Hebrew, Jonah told them.
I fear the Maker, the Lord God, too.”
“What
should we do,” the men all asked,
“to calm these stormy seas?”
“Throw me in, for it is my fault,
my God is mad at me!”
They
prayed to God to spare them,
and threw Jonah into the sea.
God caused a fish to eat him whole;
three days inside he’d be.
Jonah
prayed from the fish’s belly,
“I called out, you answered me;
from the depths of Sheol you heard,
and cast me deep into the sea.”
I
was very near to drowning,
I thought, ‘I need help, please lend a hand’.
You heard my prayer before I swooned,
and the fish threw me up on dry land.”
and told him whGod
came to Jonah a second time,
at to do again.
This time Jonah went to Nineveh,
and told them of their sins.
He
told them, “You have forty days
in which to make amends,
or God will destroy your city,
because of all your sins!”
This
angered Jonah sorely,
so he thought he’d sit this out.
He built himself a shelter,
then sat down and began to pout.
The
Lord God caused a plant to grow
to give Jonah some shade.
And Jonah was just thrilled to death
with the coolness that it made!
Next
morning, the Lord God made a worm
to eat the plant ‘til it was dead.
And He made a hot wind blow from the east,
and the sun beat on Jonah’s head.
Jonah
was so mad, he wanted to die,
because God took his plant away!
God asked Jonah, “Why are you angry?
Listen to what I have to say!”
“You’ve
compassion for a plant
that I made to give you shade;
but not for the people of Nineveh,
that your Lord God also made?”
The
moral of this “whale” of a story,
I’m sure that it is so…
is when God tells you to go somewhere,
you really need to go!!!
Peggy McIlveene
5-29-02