https://odb.org/2026/06/05/epic-encounters
Jonah 2:1–10 (NIV): From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said: “In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead called for help, and you listened to my cry. 3 You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. 4 I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ 5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit. 7 “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” 8 “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. 9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’ ” 10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
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). (Nancy Gavilanes, Our Daily Bread 5th June 2026)
When the story of Adrian Simancas’s encounter with a humpback whale first broke out, it invariably invited comparisons with Jonah and Pinocchio.
You may catch Adrian’s story and a video of his encounter at the link below: https://www.ynetnews.com/environment/article/byuxuv3tye
The reason was obvious. Both Jonah and Pinocchio stories involved being swallowed by a gigantic fish of the ocean. Jonah is biblical while Pinocchio is fiction. I am not exactly sure how Jonah survived 3 days 3 nights in the belly of the fish but in the modern context, scientists and marine biologists are of the view that Adrian was never in danger of being swallowed by the humpback whale although he was at the whale’s mouth for a fleeting second. This is because the humpback’s esophagus was not designed to swallow something as large as a human with their food of just super-tiny krill and small schooling fish like anchovies and herring and their “teeth” acting as filters to remove larger prey.
If we were to dwell deeper into Jonah’s encounter with the big fish, the story’s focus was Jonah’s wilful disobedience to God’s calling arising from his own prejudice against the evil people of Nineveh. He travelled in the complete opposite of where Nineveh was. Yet the LORD found a way to reach out to him – from the belly of a big fish! There must have been some poetic licence expanded on this story by its writers but the point is Jonah prayed and the LORD heard his prayer notwithstanding that he was somewhere deep in the ocean in the belly of a humongous fish!
The lesson we could apply for our modern lives from a biblical story like Jonah is that no matter where we are, we could pray and cry out to God and He will hear our prayers. We could be all alone and lost deep in the middle of a forest in danger of being hunted by wild beasts, yet God hears us. Or we could be adrift in the vast ocean and God hears us. In fact, we could be travelling in a train amidst a sea of thousands of commuters and God will still hear us as we pray. The LORD is always only a prayer away. Take the opportunity to pray and talk to Him. Jesus is one prayer away from us. Don’t give up hope. Persevere on with life. Reach out to Him in prayer. There is much ahead for us in God’s plans and purposes for our lives.
In the end, at verse 10 of Jonah 2, the big fish vomited Jonah out of its belly unto dry land (also not quite sure how that was possible without beaching) and Jonah went on to fulfil God’s calling for his life which was to preach to the Ninevites. Ultimately they repented of their sin and God forgave them of their unrighteousness.
Perhaps this morning, we could think about the calling that God had placed in our hearts all this while and whether we are running away or working towards it?
Have a good weekend, everyone! Enjoy the coming break although the long holidays are now over! Welcome back to school to students and those in teaching as well as parents in the daily school run! The long break will officially end this weekend!
Ronnie's Thoughts 