On May 26, 2013 at 4:30 AM
the Jascon 4, one of three tugboats towing an oil freighter off the coast of
Nigeria, started to sink. Harrison Okene, the tugboat's 29-year-old cook,
immediately knew something was wrong. As the vessel descended 100 feet to the
floor of the Atlantic Ocean pitched upside down, Okene was tossed to-and-fro in
his small quarters. He groped his way in the pitch darkness through the icy
waters, finally finding a cabin with a four-foot air pocket. He made a
make-shift platform and stacked two mattresses together in his attempt to
escape the rising water.
Dressed only in his boxer
shorts, Okene sat on the mattresses and waited for help. But the thought of
being rescued seemed remote. So Okene, a follower of Jesus, started to pray the
Psalms: “Oh, God, by your name, save me,” and “The Lord sustains my life.”
Okene told reporters, “I started calling on the name of God . . . reminiscing
on the verses I read before I slept. I read the Bible from Psalms 54 to 92. My
wife had sent me the verses to read that night when she called me before I went
to bed.”
Harrison Okene discovered
Two-and-a-half days later,
Okene was certain the rest of the eleven-man crew had drowned and that he would
also drown. Then he heard the sound of rescuers and started banging on the
steel walls of his cabin with a hammer. The Dutch divers who found him couldn't
believe their eyes. As they reached out for a hand of a man they assumed was
dead, the hand grabbed theirs.
To this day, Okene
believes his rescue after 72 hours underwater was the result of divine
deliverance. He told a Nigerian newspaper, “The rest of my life is not enough
to thank God for this wonder. It is incredible.”[1]
I read that story not long
after studying the book of Jonah and I saw immediate parallels. As many of you
know, Jonah is the story of a prodigal prophet. In chapter one he runs from
God, but in chapter two he runs into God, “And the Lord appointed a great fish
to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and
three nights” (1:17).
The belly of a fish is not
a great place to live, but it is a great place to learn. Sloshing around in the
gastric juices, saltwater and seaweed, Jonah received Divine discipline in the
darkness.
For 72 hours, Jonah was
allowed to reap what he had sowed. The fish was not only God’s prison and God’s
passage for his prophet, but it was also his prayer closet. In chapter two, Jonah learned how to pray
while in a whale of a mess. “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the
belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and
he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol
I cried and you heard my voice” (2:1-2).
As you examine the rest of
his prayer, you’ll quickly notice that Jonah quotes copiously from the Psalms.
He was saturated in the Scriptures and alludes to ten Psalms in his distress.
Which speaks to us of the value of hiding God’s Word in our hearts.
Two castaways—Jonah and
Harrison Okene, survived their darkest moments by leaning on God’s Word. What
about you? Do you have any of God’s Word stored up in your heart for such a desperate
time? Chances are when and if a moment like that arises you won’t have time to
access a Bible. Calamity seldom gives a heads up before it strikes. The best time to prepare for hard times is now and the best way is store up God’s
Word so we will have something sturdy to hold on to when everything is
topsy-turvy. -DM
[1] Liz
Klimas, “Watch the Incredible Moment Divers Inspecting Capsized Ship Find a Man
Alive After Nearly 3 Days,” The Blaze, 2
December 2013 <http://www.theblaze.com/news/2013/12/02/watch-the-incredible-moment-divers-inspecting-capsized-ship-find-man-alive-after-nearly-3-days/>
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