God's Compassion is Greater
Even When Prayer Seems Non-Essential
How essential do you view prayer in your life? How does your life reflect what you believe about the importance of prayer?
A healthy prayer life is such a struggle for many Christians because we don’t fully understand God’s purposes in prayer.
If you recognize in humility the need for growth in your prayer life, there’s hope for us in Jonah 2 as we learn through Jonah’s prayer in the belly of a fish how God intends to use prayer in the life of the believer.
God uses the prayers of His people regardless of circumstances in order to change us:
1. To see our circumstances as compassion from God (1-3)
- Compassion to acknowledge what it’s like in the moment – we can articulate the experience we’re in (2-3)
- Compassion to acknowledge who is behind the moment – we must remind ourselves who we’re in (2-3)
- God uses our circumstances to interrupt our sin and advance our sanctification (cf. Romans 8:28, Ephesians 1:11-12)
What circumstances in your life have you not been able to see as compassion from God? Pray! This is how God will use your faithful prayer. What sin needs to be repented of? And/or in what way is God focusing on in sanctification in you right now that you need to steward the strength He’s given you into?
2. To change our complaining to communion with God (4-7)
- Communion with God that recognizes where we’ve been (4-7)
- Communion with God that rejoices in where we’re going (4b, 6b, 7b, cf. Ephesians 2:1-10)
- Jonah was thankful not that God had changed his immediate circumstances, but that God had changed his heart back to Him (cf. Ephesians 2)
Are you still living like a dead person? Jonah is recorded in Jonah 1 and 2 not for his spiritual zeal or evangelistic effort, but his run from God. But in his prayer, we see God work through it and how God can work through our prayer - to change our complaining to communion with Him.
3. To leave our cowardice for commitment to God (8-10)
- Cowardice leaves us apart from God (8)
- Commitment leads us to seek after God (9)
- The expression of commitment is belief in the sacrifice of the blood of an innocent life and personal commitment expressed in a vow – in Jesus! (cf. Jonah 1:16)
What empty nothings are you clinging to that are causing you to turn away from God’s faithful love for you? Are you trusting in and living out your belief in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ made for you and the personal commitment of confessing Christ as Lord of your life?
So, how’s your prayer? Are you living a life that lives out the belief of these non-Christian scholars that prayer adds no value to the flow and progression of your life? Or do you see prayer as one of the essential elements that God uses to enable growth, progression, and change in your life?
God’s purposes in your prayer are to change you to see your circumstances as compassion from God, to change your complaining to communion with God, and a call to leave your cowardice for commitment to God. Don’t wait until you’ve been hurled into the sea and swallowed by a fish. Pray!
Series Information
