Principle: Only God can circumcise the human heart.

Illustration: I remember some wise counsel I received multiple times from a man in a church I pastored several years back. He and I were very closely theologically aligned. We both emphasized the sovereignty of God and the holiness of God repeatedly in our teaching. We both rejected Pelagianism and contemporary Arminianism as serious errors. But my buddy saw something in me that I did not see. He saw me growing impatient for people to see the grace of God themselves. I was working night and day at multiple jobs, teaching school, going to school for yet another earned degree, and my buddy told me, “Jon, you can sow the seeds but only God can till the heart.”

I was wearing myself out. Why? In hopes that people might see. But I needed to be humbled. I needed to be taught that I cannot do that. No matter of logic, human persuasion, fellowship, kindness, or long hours will do it. Only God redeems. Only God grants spiritual sight.

This takes us again to Jonah. He’s been thrown overboard. A large fish just happens (purely by accident, of course) swallows him. It’s for three days and nights, just as Christ was three days and nights in the heart of the earth (purely by accident, of course). Jonah’s prayer life takes it right to the PhD-level of prayer:

When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD! (Jonah 3:7-9, ESV).

And you remember what happens in v. 10, right? “And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”

What do you know? Three days. What do you know? Jonah learned about the importance of having the One who is Faithful and True (Revelation 19:11) to save and to conquer. What do you know? Salvation is God’s work, Jonah; you’re just the messenger. Know your role.

Jonah would go on to mess up again in the book that bears his name. But the lessons God’s people should learn are there to behold and inculcate.

Salvation belongs to the Lord, indeed (Jonah 2:9b). We can sow the seeds but only God can till the human heart. May we be faithful in the roles God assigns his people.