Daily Devotional March 4 - Believe this and live well

"Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly," Jonah 1:17 - 2:1

Have you ever felt like you were in the belly of a whale? You know overwhelmed with darkness and despair and unable to see the end, deep in the situation and unable to get out or even see out; a time where hope vanished and your hands were tied.
A time when your greatest aspiration was just to get out of it.
A time when you would gladly embrace your regular problems with open arms and where you would trade all the stuff in your garage (that has been there for years, unused and in most cases unusable) for just a glimmer of change to your situation.
A place where you would even give up your possessions if it meant escaping the circumstance.

Have you ever been through such a thing or are you going through one right now? Had Jonah not known the Lord, it would never had crossed his mind to pray and ask forgiveness for his sin. But Jonah did know God and so do you. Prayer is real and Jonah prayed himself right out of that big fish's mouth. You can pray yourself right out of the fish's mouth too. How do I know? I've prayed myself out of the fish's mouth. You can't get past fifty and have never had anything go wrong.

You know Jonah got himself thrown into the water in the first place. He wouldn't do what God wanted him to do and when the tempest came on the boat, he felt like he was the cause. He asked the others to throw him in the water, and they did. Jonah was guilty. You may or may not have been guilty, but you should know, whether you were guilty or not, when faced with the end results of being in the whales belly for three days, when the end looks eminent and any chance of outside help has dissipated, when there are no friends to call, no advocate available, God will listen.
God will listen and God will answer.
God will deliver
God will re-assign you
God will build you back up
God will bless you and make you to shine
God will increase you
God will use you as an example of just how far you can come with God
Whether you got yourself in the belly of the whale on your own or your friends threw you there, you are only a prayer away from a whole new experience. Believe this and live well in the Lord, not in the belly of a whale.