The Greek philosopher Plato said, “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.” There’s a Nigerian proverb that says, “Give thanks for a little and you will get a lot.” And an old Spanish and Portuguese proverb says, “To the grateful man give more than he asks.” Giving thanks in all circumstances is a biblical command. It took Jonah a while to get this message. He initially ran from God and when the storm hit the sea and the pagan sailors confronted him he said, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9).
Jonah asked them to throw him into the sea to stop the storm: “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you” (vs. 12). Then God provided a great fish to swallow up Jonah, where he spent three days and nights. Chapter 2 reads like a Hebrew Psalm of thanksgiving. The fish was not sent to punish Jonah, but to rescue him from the sea. The violent, chaotic sea was the judgement and God rescued Jonah from it by carrying Jonah through the water inside the fish.
Jonah’s prayer inside the fish is not one of someone being punished, but of someone who has just been rescued. He cried out from the realm of the dead (Sheol), and God listened. Jonah said the seaweed wrapped around his head and he went down to the land whose bars closed upon him forever, “yet you brought my life from the pit” (vs. 6). Jonah finishes his prayer by saying, “But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” (vs. 9). Jonah is a reminder that a grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.