“I called to the Lord out of my distress,
 and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
 and you heard my voice.
³ You cast me into the deep,
 into the heart of the seas,
 and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
 passed over me.
⁴ Then I said, ‘I am driven away
 from your sight;
how^[a] shall I look again
 upon your holy temple?’
⁵ The waters closed in over me;
 the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
⁶ at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
 whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
 O Lord my God.
⁷ As my life was ebbing away,
 I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
 into your holy temple.
⁸ Those who worship vain idols
 forsake their true loyalty.
⁹ But I with the voice of thanksgiving
 will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
 Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”

Jonah 2:2-9

Sometimes, right after someone does something for us that we truly appreciate, we offer our thanks. It is the polite thing to do.

The story of the Jonah has a moment when the run-away prophet offers a prayer of thanksgiving to God:

I with the voice of thanksgiving
 will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay

I am impressed that Jonah stopped to thank God for God’s care. And I am more impressed at when in his life story Jonah penned this thank you note.

Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, ² saying…

Jonah 2:1

Jonah thanked God for God’s love and care not after the turmoil and trouble was over, but in the midst of the crisis (from the belly of the whale.) As I look around, the storms of virus and hatred seem to be raging, but maybe this is when I need to stop and thank God for being here.

Prayer

Wonderful and powerful God, with the voice of thanksgiving I will sacrifice to You today. Thank You for being present in my life. Amen.