At God’s word everything obeys. Every confinement ceases. You cannot be entrapped by anything that will refuse to obey God’s command. 

Through fire and water 

Jonah was imprisoned by his circumstances, but God’s command released him. God is far greater than our circumstances. At any time he can command our “fish”: “Enough! Let him go!” And the fish will cough us up – not back into the sea, but onto dry land. 

Psalms 66: 10-12 says “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.” God takes his people through difficult circumstances, not because he wants to hurt them, but because he wants to strengthen them and make them more effective.

You get a second chance (and a third, and fourth…) 

At last Jonah was on dry ground, delivered, delighted, but probably disqualified – or was he? No! Here we find those wonderful words, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time” (Jonah 3:1). What a glorious statement. We may have written Jonah off; he might even have disqualified himself. But God didn’t abandon him. He brought his prophet right back into his original plans, back to where he had left off. 

Scarred people

Throughout Scripture we read of scarred people whom God had chosen and who heard from him a second time. Abraham, unable to wait for God to give him a child by his wife Sarah, produced a son through her maid, Hagar. After thirteen years, Abraham heard God’s voice again, “Your wife shall bear you a son” (Gen. 17:19). And a year later the promise was fulfilled. 

God takes his people through difficult circumstances, not because he wants to hurt them, but because he wants to strengthen them and make them more effective.

God is a God of grace

Then there was Moses, who sought to deliver Israel ahead of God’s schedule, killed an Egyptian, and ran for his life (Exodus 2:11-14). Forty years later God called him again, and Moses brought the Israelites out of bondage just as God had intended. And what about David, the man after God’s own heart? He committed adultery and as good as murdered the woman’s husband (2 Samuel 11). 

Peter cursed and swore that he didn’t know Jesus (Luke 22:54-62), but he wasn’t overlooked from that time on. God’s word came to Peter a second time, “Do you love me?” (John 21:15-17). And on the day of Pentecost, who was it standing there preaching the gospel to which 3,000 people responded? (Acts 2).

If Jonah and these other scarred, messed-up people weren't out of reach of God's grace, are you?