Cut-off or Rescued?

When have you felt cut off by God? For Jonah, in a cry for help to God while in the belly of a fish, he expresses in a grumpy and despairing manner his frustration that God was the one that cut him off. Jonah blames God for being in the ocean (even though it was Jonah who told the sailors to throw him in). 

“You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.
I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight” Jonah 2:3-4

In isolation and despair, Jonah prays and plays the blame-game. It is God’s fault, Jonah claims. 

In each of our lives, we have found ourselves in the “belly of a whale” trying to make sense of why we are cut off. In our women and non-binary small group on Sunday, we reflected on moments in our own lives where we have felt cut-off by God. For many of us, we did not feel a direct attack from God, but rather felt cut off from our communities. We have been relationally excluded by our family, friends, and churches. Broken relationships, rejection, and isolation feels as though God threw us into the sea. Would you take a moment to pause and reflect, when have you felt cut off by God? 

Our group finished our time together with a reflection on where we have felt rescued by God.  Many of us have felt rescued by God in our communities, especially City Church. Relationships that have openly accepted, affirmed, and held us have felt like the very outstretch of God’s parental arms rescuing us. Take some time today to reflect on times you have felt rescued by God. Then ask, how am I embodying the arms of God in my community? Where am I helping alleviate suffering for those despairing in the belly of a whale? 

- Dottie Oleson