Patiently Waiting Your Reply

Jonah 1:17-2:10

Sometimes you just need time to think.

A friend of mine had to undergo knee surgery that stopped him cold for three weeks. He was a seriously “Type A” human being--always moving, always working on something. He was a triathlete, meaning the time not spent working or with family was spent on a bicycle, in a pool, or running the neighborhood. He slept about five hours a night because it was all he could fit in, he reflected. Then, with a subtle click during one of his runs, a tendon popped in his knee. Off to the orthopedist and soon enough in for out patient surgery. Then to recover. For a couple of days, he did his therapy, but then spent the day on the sofa surrounded by books--he hated television--and confronted the bay window that overlooked the woods behind his house for hours on end. He slept because he got bored. But then he began to pay attention to the woods. There was a lot going on out there when you took the time to actually see it. He ordered an Audubon bird guide because he was overwhelmed by the sheer variety of avian society flitting within the trees. He got to know a couple squirrels on a personal level. “Mick” and “Ralph” would suddenly pop up on the window sill, looking at him reclining on the sofa several times a day, like God’s own orderlies checking on the patient. Also, as he took in the wonder of the woods, he began to think about life and how much time he spent doing a bunch of stuff. How much of it actually mattered? Sure, he was in the top twenty percentile of American triathletes, but so what? Sure, his bosses admired his tenacity and work ethic, but was he doing what he felt gifted to do? Was it meaningful? He looked at the framed photos of his wife and two children. In the picture, the kids were three and four, but now the eldest was filling out college applications and the youngest was turning into a track athlete all her own, but also loved to dance, draw, and would also soon be thinking about college--he had heard the Rhode Island School of Design dropped at the breakfast table a couple of weeks ago. He saw his wife. She was a great pit crew at his races. She was a patient support as he worked stupid hours. She understood when he wrapped himself in Gore-tex to ride the bike in the rain for a couple of hours after putting in ten hours at the office. But when had he last taken her to dinner? Suddenly, he began to form a picture of himself, and he was not sure he like all the details in that portrait. His priorities needed shifting. The forced break from the routine became a Godsend. He needed time to think.

Jonah sat inside a great fish. He could not do much more than think, cramped up in there. 

He prayed. What else was there to do?

He prayed to God about God. He prayed to God about what God demanded of him. He prayed to God about his stubbornness--his and God’s. He prayed away the hours. 

We need that. We really do.

At times, we wonder about the efficacy of prayer. There is so much silence in prayer. Sometimes the silence is ours. We don’t know what to say. We don’t know how to say what we want to say. We feel stupid about the topics. We feel beneath God’s notice. We feel inept at words. At times the silence is God’s. We pour our hearts out, but there is nothing much in return. Just a wall of silence. A stillness too profound for words. It puts us off. It tests our patience. We can feel the frustration build. 

Note that, for Jonah, there was a lot of silence, too. God does not say anything in response to Jonah. For three days, he prays and prays. For three days, he rests in the muck and mire of the fish. The darkness is tangible, the stench inescapable, and the silence deep and solid. 

This becomes the real test of prayer. We often take it as the most negative piece of trying to be earnest in prayer. It leads to the inevitable “why bother?” moment. 

But here is another way to think about it.

Maybe it is a necessary pause. Maybe it is the time and space to really think about things. 

My friend did not radicalize his life after his convalescence. He did not quit his job; he rethought it. He still ran, rode, and swam, but more for the sheer joy of it than the haul of medals. Instead, his beloved and his children became the center of his life. He realized he had a lot to give them, so he did. 

Now, how about us?

What would you do with time to do whatever you wanted? Immediate responses are sometimes about vacations, shows, or just sitting with a cup of coffee staring out the window. But go a bit deeper. If you had the time to really rearrange and consider your life, what might change, what might be kept, and what might be added or taken away? 

We need those times.

We cannot say they are out of reach. Thich Nhat Hanh, one of my favorite writers on the spiritual life, recommends that busy people not radically attempt to add prayer to their lives, which would only result in it becoming yet another box to be checked off on the already over-stuffed list of things to do, but instead add it in tiny increments--start with two minutes--really!--two minutes. That can be done in the shower, right before sleep, while munching the morning bagel. Just pray for two minutes about whatever comes to mind. All topics are valid because they are there. Then, after a while, add a minute. 

God did not answer Jonah with words, God freed him from the fish. Jonah had the time needed. It was done. Now it was time to get to work with eyes wide open.

Try it and see what happens.