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.” (Jonah 2:2, NIV)
The past five weeks have been a wild ride for me. We sometimes feel and believe everything is going to be all right and then it turns south. It’s like hitting your drives down the middle, irons feel good, and you’re putting everything in the hole—you feel like you can make everything! Then all of a sudden, you can’t keep the driver in the fairway, you can’t make any putt, you say to yourself, Who is in this body?
There is a great line in the upcoming movie, The Mulligan (trailer here). A question was asked, “Will there be golf in heaven?” The answer: “God made golf to be played here, to keep us humble.”
Today’s verse comes from Jonah. Yes, this is the same Jonah who was swallowed up by a large fish, as many of us heard in Sunday school. Our verse is part of Jonah’s prayer to the Lord after not being drowned in the whale. This was a prayer of thanksgiving, as he was overwhelmed that he had escaped from death. Jonah knew to offer thanks even for this bad episode in his life.
The only secure and stable foundation for my life is our Savior, Jesus Christ.
There’s a reason I have chosen this verse for today. It was given to me by a friend in recent weeks when my father was dying. Many people prayed with me for his healing. I also prayed often for God’s wisdom and strength, and asked that his will be done in my dad’s life and mine. Many friends asked me how I was doing, and I can honestly tell you that if it was not for my faith in Jesus, I would be a mess.
I recently heard a message that reminded me where my faith is built on. In John 16:33, Jesus said that while we will have trouble in the world, he has overcome the world. So the only secure and stable foundation for my life is our Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s the rock my faith is built upon.
Through this journey, I was able to pray for my dad and even baptized him in the hospital while he was conscious. My daughter-in-law, who is in the medical field, said to me that one’s hearing is the last to go before death. With that, we talked, prayed, read Scripture, and played one of Dad’s favorite songs until his last breath here on earth. God is so good, all the time.
My prayer to God was like Jonah’s. I thanked God for my dad’s life, with confidence that my dad is with Jesus. As my dad passed, God put another verse on my heart: “…but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8, NASB). Home with the Lord, where there is no more pain, no more tears, and no more suffering.
—
Dereck Wong
September 8, 2021
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash