Jonah 1:17

Jonah 1:17 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  2020 in a sentence, right?  When do we get out of the fish?
 
  Just a few short notes here.  First, we all end up in the fish sometimes.  At times, maybe it's due to a bad choice you made.  Other times, life just happens.  It's terrible.  Here, the fish actually saves Jonah from drowning, as he certainly would have otherwise, but I'm not going to say that everything bad in life translates into good things.  Scripture tells us that everything works together for good, but that doesn't mean everything is good.  Sometimes, life just feels like you're in the belly of a fish, and it's rotten.
  Second, this is not the end for Jonah, and it's not the end for you or I, either.  Life continues after the valley of the shadow of death.  We move through these things.  A very wise woman in Chattnooga would tell me, after the death of her husband, that these things come to pass -- they don't come to stay.  We mourn and grieve in the belly of the fish, and sometimes those scars stay with, occasionally forever, but the darkness cannot overcome the light, and death cannot overwhelm life. 
  Jonah was in a fish for three days, before he emerged back into the light.  Jesus was in the tomb for three days before he burst forth into life.  You and I will, on occasion, end up in the belly of a fish.  There is life on the other side.