Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: STORM (10/05/17)
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TITLE: Jonah's Just-so Storm | Previous Challenge Entry
By Rebecca Lunn
10/11/17 -
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The runaway preacher snored in a dull slumber inside a wooden ship bobbing on the calm Mediterranean sea. Who would have thought preacher Jonah’s storm was made up of merely wind and water? But it was on this very day and in this very hour that God scheduled a wind to churn up the dark salty water into a white frenzied foam. The gale screeched and swirled round and round the ship like a rabid dog chasing its own tail. The ship rose up to the heavens, then shuddered and shook downward into hell. Scared sailors heaved heavy cargo overboard one by one into the jaws of the whirlpool. But it was no use. This was no ordinary storm. Our modern scientific findings regarding movements of air or water will never detect spiritual components. On the other hand, this ancient biblical account is prima facia theological evidence detecting that Jonah’s storm was a chastisement for curbing spiritual rebellion.
A few short days before Jonah’s grave watery episode, God had confidently summoned his prophet to go east to the great city of Nineveh to protest its rampant wickedness. After counting the cost, well-to-do Jonah paid a ship’s captain, then boldly headed due west. In the belly of the boat, Jonah’s deep sleep of denial was his best attempt at shutting God out of his conscience via his consciousness. Unfortunately for Jonah, when he turned his back, flipped a deaf ear, and shut a blind eye against God, he logged off to sleep potentially with Nineveh’s blood on his hands.
Under God’s surveillance, Nineveh’s evils and Jonah’s dereliction of duty were simultaneously monitored. Since Jonah had been urgently hand-picked to be Nineveh’s savior, this prophet must not perish in his rebellion! Like a sword unsheathed for executing justice, a great wind was let loosed on the great sea to barricade the ship Jonah was in. Such a violent storm arose that the ship came to the point of breaking up—yet miraculously, it does not. The thunderous roaring drench proved successful. Jonah woke up, and a frightful confession was wrung out of him by the ship’s captain. “Depart from me you wicked servant,” was God’s spiritual verdict against Jonah. In the agonizing moment of Jonah being dropped into the raging waves as a sacrificial lamb, the storm astonishingly skidded to a halt. The waves whimpered then disappeared along with the wind. Hitting the water, Jonah spiraled downward with precision onto the landing pad of the tongue of a whale! Jonah is be transported back due east.
The spiritual effect God desired was for Jonah to extend mercy to Nineveh. It took the duration of three days and three nights in the mild acid bath of the whale’s stomach juices to accomplish this extreme makeover in unmerciful Jonah.
When Jonah finally prayed for mercy, mercy arrived. Jonah did not drown in the sea nor did he disintegrate inside the whale. God even prepared a seaweed wrap for Jonah’s head to soften the preacher’s dare-devil heart. The whale did not indiscriminately dispose of Jonah underwater, but on a beach amazingly near home. God’s merciful parting shot for Jonah’s bad service was to burp him out in a spurt of vomit spewed from the great fish’s mouth—not ignominiously out the tail end.
No one was there to calculate how long it took for Jonah to overcome his secret spiritual storm—except for God himself. There, as an invisible witness present inside the pit of the whale’s stomach, God silently set up a prophetic time-bomb planted to go off seven hundred years later. In due time, Jesus of Nazareth ignited the match between Jonah to himself. Jesus predicted his own descent into the belly of the earth to storm hell lasting three days to mimic Jonah’s descent into the belly of the whale that lasted three days. Pointedly, Jonah’s intact physical ascent out of his watery grave was prima facia evidence for Jesus’ uncorrupted bodily resurrection-explosion from his earthly grave. Those three days and nights happening to those two persons displayed an undeniable omnipotence of God. Meticulously and prophetically, the power of Jonah’s storm was calibrated so that none perished: Jonah did not, the ship did not, the sailors did not, and Nineveh did not. Jonah’s storm was designed as a sign to demonstrate how God so loved the world that whoever believed in Jesus should not perish but have everlasting life.
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You might be careful to separate your paragraphs with a space or two so they don't run together.
Also, you are missing some commas in various places that would make the read flow better.
Jonah's story is always an interesting read.
Your piece was nicely written. The only thing I might say or question is "which version or translation uses the word 'whale' instead of fish".If there is any inconsistency in a story and the Bible counterpart; some people may reject the Bible as well as the story.
Keep you eyes in his word just to make sure.
Where is Waldo came to my mind when I saw your formatting. Put white spaces between paragraphs or you will lose your audience.
It seems like such a minor detail, but it is laborious to read without those breaks. Hope that helps.
Good job and keep the stories coming. God bless