I grew up in a Christian home, and as a small child, I learned Bible stories—especially the stories worthy of inclusion in the Bible’s album of greatest hits: Moses crossing the Red Sea, Joshua bringing down Jericho, David defeating Goliath, Daniel in the lions’ den, and of course, Jonah and the whale.

Now obviously, the Bible doesn’t say it was a whale that swallowed Jonah—it was probably something else—but that image burned into the photo-plate of my mind’s eye so that for years, I never really got past “Jonah and the Whale” to see, as the late Paul Harvey would famously say, “the rest of the story.” And what a story the rest of it is. The “real” story is not so much about Jonah and the great fish as it is about God great gifts—his great compassion, his great grace, and his great provision of both for wayward sinners and wandering saints alike.

Rereading this short story again reminded me of how amazing the book of Jonah is, and even more, of how amazing this God we serve truly is. One of the phrases you run into a few times in the Jonah account is “the Lord provided”. It is encountered right away in Jonah 1:17 where we find that it was the Lord who provided “the great fish” to swallow the disobedient prophet.

Now think about that! Normally our theology wouldn’t lead us to connect “man-eating creature” with “Jehovah-Jireh”, but in truth, we need to broaden our theology. Sometimes the very things we view as enemies to the life of faith are in reality God’s best tools to shape us into the useful, faithful servants he calls us to be. Often, it is pain, frustration and discomfort that in reality are the Father’s gracious gifts to us—unwanted and unappreciated gifts—that redirect our disobedient, selfish and shortsighted ways to bring us to the place of greater usefulness and greater blessing.

Jonah didn’t want to obey God and go to Nineveh to preach to the godless people there, not because he was afraid of them, but because he figured they would repent. He hated them because of what they were capable of doing to Israel (the Assyrians, Israel’s sworn enemies, were not nice people) and Jonah knew quite well that if they humbled themselves in response to his preaching, the gracious and compassionate God would relent from sending judgment upon them (which is ultimately what happened). So Jonah rebelled, he followed his own plan, he disobeyed, and the gracious and compassionate God sent Jonah a gift—a great fish that would redirect him to the path of obedience.

Yes, that is what the book of Jonah is about: A great fish and a gracious, compassionate God who sends his provision of unwanted gifts to wayward sinners and wandering saints alike. Consider what the great thinker C.S. Lewis said in this regard,

“Because we are rebels against God who must lay down our arms, our other pains may indeed constitute God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world to surrender. There is a universal feeling that bad people ought to suffer: without a concept of ‘retribution’ punishment is rendered unjust (what can be more immoral than to inflict suffering on me for the sake of deterring others if I do not deserve it?). But until the evil person finds evil unmistakably present in his or her existence, in the form of pain, we are enclosed in illusion. Pain, as God’s megaphone, gives us the only opportunity we may have for amendment. It plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul. All of us are aware that it is very hard to turn our thoughts to God when things are going well. To ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We regard him as we do a heart-lung machine—there for emergencies, but we hope we’ll never have to use it. So God troubles our selfishness, which stands between us and the recognition of our need. God’s divine humility stoops to conquer, even if we choose him merely as an alternative to hell. Yet even this he accepts!”

Perhaps God has graciously sent you some unwanted gifts. Take it on faith, they are gifts that come out of the deep reservoir of his compassion for you. They are the very things he will use to redirect you to the path of obedience, and ultimately of greater usefulness and greater blessing. Right now, you may not be too happy about them. Later on, you will!

“My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorns. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross: but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross: teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.”~George Matheson

Reflect and Apply: Try praying George Mattheson’s prayer, giving thanks for the “unwanted” gifts God has placed in your life. By the way, if you think that prayer seems a bit too hard for you to pray, just consider this: The man who prayed it, George Matheson, went totally blind when he was twenty years old.