One moment Adrián Simancas was kayaking in the Strait of Magellan in Chile with his father. The next, the twenty-four-year-old was engulfed in the mouth of a humpback whale. “I thought I was dead,” Adrián told a news outlet. After a few seconds, the whale released Adrián into the frigid waters. His life vest caused him to float to the water’s surface, and his father helped him to safety.

The Old Testament prophet Jonah also had an encounter with a large sea creature. Jonah refused to follow God’s directive to preach a message of repentance to the Israelites’ enemies, the Ninevites, so he boarded a ship in the opposite direction of Nineveh. When the ship got caught in a storm, Jonah convinced the crew to throw him overboard (Jonah 1:11-12, 15). “Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (v. 17). Jonah went from fleeing from God to crying out to Him: “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God” (2:1).

God heard Jonah and rescued him (v. 10). Then Jonah preached to the Ninevites, and they repented (3:8-10).

If God could hear Jonah’s plea from inside a big fish, He can hear us and rescue us from wherever we are. Instead of running from God, let’s run to Him in prayer, knowing that He will answer us when we cry out to Him.