SanghaToday Blog

Telling bedtime tales to little kids is a tradition that will forever stay alive and exciting. These stories have a very significant role in shaping up the character and values of coming generation and hence, the complete nation. Little kids tend to percieve their story heroes as their ideals and aspire to be just like them. These stories invoke, a sense of good and bad in children and builds their character. This is why, it is essential to be very wise while looking for the right tales to read to your kids. These tales should give a lesson of truthfulness, valor, duty, courage, faith and values. The best book you can find for such tales is the Holy Bible. You can find many Christian books for children that tell the Jesus story and other stories from the book in a very simple and inspiring manner.

Of course, there are countless other stories in Bible, other than the the Christ’s. One of such stories is the story of Jonah and the big fish. Jonah was a prophet of God who was born in Israel during 780 B.C. At the time of Jonah, there was a powerful wicked nation, Assyria. Assyrians, were enemies of Israel. The Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyrians, where the Ninevites people were indulged in many wrong deeds. God told him to preach the Ninevites and ask them to repent and inform them about the result of their ignorance.

Yet Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh as it was his enemy land. Maybe he wanted them to bear God’s wrath or may be he was fearful of getting killed. Instead of heading for Nineveh, Jonah disobeyed God’s will and boarded a ship that was going to Spain. While he was on his journey to Tarshish, a great storm caught the ship and started flipping it wildly. It was a convention in those days that in time of such storms, the crew used to cast a lot. The person on whom the lot fell on was assumed to be the one to blame for the trouble.

The crew of Jonah’s ship decided to cast a lot too and unfortunately the lot fell on Jonah. The crew asked, Jonah about what bad deed he has done to cause such trouble to all of them. Jonah admits that he had tried to disobey God’s order and suggests that he must be thrown overboard in order to save everyone else on the ship. The sailors threw him overboard and the storm setteled down. Before Jonah could drown, God sent a big fish which swallowed Jonah alive. Jonah was saved and remained inside the fish’s belly. According to the Bible, he stayed there for three days and three nights. He did not whine nor did he fear, in fact he prayed all the time and praised his Lord for his generosity, thanked his God for saving his life.

When passed the three days and three nights, God ordered the fish to throw Jonah out on the shore. Jonah now obeyed God’s order and went to Nineveh where he preached to the people. Amazingly, the people of Nineveh, along with the King, believed Jonah and asked for forgiveness. And so, God brought salvation upon the Nineveh using Jonah who was not content with this fact and showed his anger by running away to a remote shelter. Living in anger there, he questioned God why He spared the wicked nation. The God said “But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” (Jonah 4:11 NLT) The story of Jonah, hence, is one amazing story about duty and God’s mercy upon his people. It definitely gives us a lesson about obeying God’s order and not doubting His will.