Like a Bad Movie
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish’s belly. And he said: “I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.” – Jonah 1:17b-2:2 NKJV.
…the younger son…journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. …But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’” And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. – Luke 15:13-20 NKJV.
In Germany, Gerle Kittler must have become a little bored at a friend’s party, so he took a nap on the couch. Now his friends thought that was a little rude, and since the couch had wheels, they wheeled him out of the house down to the railroad station about a mile away. They bought a ticket for Gerle, and for the couch, and away he went. The 25-year-old Gerle woke up on a railroad station platform four miles down the line. He awakened still on the couch with the police shaking him and demanding to see some identification. Then, he discovered that he had no money to buy a return ticket, and the battery was down on his cell phone. So he ran the four or five miles back home, and he says he went right back to bed. Later, Gerle said this about waking up on the couch at the railroad station, “I thought I was in the middle of a bad movie.”
Have you ever awakened to discover that your life is like a bad movie? I have had that unpleasant experience more than once; although, I never awakened to find myself on a couch at a railroad station. But I have found myself to be living in miserable situations, which I hated, and knew that I had brought all of it on myself. Those awful situations would have just continued to have become worse; however, I finally repented, fell on my knees before God, and asked His forgiveness and help.
Jonah perhaps had the ultimate bad movie part having decided to go in the opposite direction from where God wanted. Jonah did not wake up asleep on a couch in a railroad station; no, Jonah woke up in the belly of a great fish. It took him a while, but he too finally came to his senses, and he cried out to God in repentance. The fish then spit Jonah out on the dry ground, and Jonah then proceeded to do what God had wanted him to do in the beginning.
The Prodigal son, like Jonah, found himself in a bad movie ready to eat what he was feeding to the hogs. He decided that he would go back home to his father and hoped his father would let him be one of his servants. The father, however, welcomed him back home as a son.
What was it that happened prior to the bad movie ending in these situations? Turning to God. The father in the parable of the prodigal is representative of our Heavenly Father. So, if you feel like you have awakened in the middle of a bad movie, the first thing to do is get down on your knees and ask for God to help you. If you have sinned, ask His forgiveness (1 John 1:9), and hopefully everything will change, and the bad movie will finally come to an end for you.
(Have you ever awakened to discover that your life is like a bad movie and you have the staring role?)