Things To Do In The Belly Of A Whale: Selah

Here’s Dan Albergotti’s poem, Things To Do In The Belly Of A Whale…

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.

Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats.

Practice smoke signals.

Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.

Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach.

Look each way for the dim glow of light.

Work on your reports.

Review each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing.

Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it.

Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound of gears and moving water.

Listen for the sound of your heart.

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait.

Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done.

Remember treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

I recently saw a T-shirt with a man in the belly of a whale—sending a smoke signal that said, “Send Wi-Fi”.

Jonah spent 3 days in the belly of a whale.

What did he do with his time there?

The Bible only gives us Jonah’s prayer—7 verses (takes about 30 seconds to read).

So what else did he do?

And what should we do when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable place?

I’d like to suggest something from one of the lines in Albergotti’s poem:

“Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait.”

 

Be thankful.

You’re still alive.

And although this might be uncomfortable—there is still hope.

Rest and wait.

There’s a word that appears in the Psalms 71 times…

Selah.

It’s not easy to translate. There isn’t an English equivalent to Selah.

The Amplified Bible translates Selah as “pause and calmly think of that”.

Usually when we’re in a difficult or uncomfortable place, we get worked up, stressed-out, and go into panic mode.

The problem is, frenzied attempts to rescue ourselves never seem to work.

Instead, we need to Selah.

Pause and calmly think.

Rest and wait.

Reflect.

Listen.

What is God saying?

Let it sink in.

Be thankful.

You’re still alive.

And although this might be uncomfortable—there is still hope.

Selah.