Most of us know what it feels like to be at rock bottom: a decision we made led to calamity, a relationship we cherished unraveled, a season of life we’re going through feels like it is closing in on every side.
In times like those, it may help to remember that Jonah’s prayer in chapter two comes from literal rock bottom. He is in the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea, which is the ancient world’s way of saying he is as far from God and from hope as it is possible to be. And from that place, with nowhere else to turn, he prays.
The biblical tradition is consistent on this point. Some of its most honest and most beautiful prayers come from the bottom. The Psalms are full of them. Lamentations is essentially nothing else. Job speaks his most searingly honest words to God not from comfort but from atop an ash heap.
Which suggests that rock bottom is not outside the reach of God. It may in fact be where God is easiest to find.
