For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. – Matthew 12:40, King James Version (KJV)

Imagine that you are 36 years old. One day you’re healthy, working hard, and playing hard. The next day, you’re fighting for your life in the hospital after a massive stroke.  When you wake up from the stroke, you find out that half of your brain is pretty much toast, you can’t walk, and you will be handicapped for the rest of your life. How do you think you’d feel?

If you said, “despondent,” “depressed,” or “life wouldn’t be worth living,” you would not be alone. Donnie Edison felt this way, too, and he felt this way after having a real, not imaginary, stroke at the age of 36. But one day, while lying on the couch in his living room, he heard a sound that changed his life. It was baseball season, and just a few hundred feet away from his home, a local high school baseball team was practicing. Donnie heard the simple sound of a metal bat connecting with a baseball, and, as Donnie states in his interview with CBS news, that sound, “saved my life.”

Donnie asked his wife, Natalia, to take him across the street to watch batting practice. Day after day she obliged, and before long his constant presence at practice prompted the school’s baseball coach to invite Donnie to be his assistant coach. With newfound purpose, Donnie learned to walk again, and soon thereafter, he developed a heart for special education students. He enrolled in college to become a special education teacher, and he now spends his days helping such students overcome their limitations.

A former bartender who admittedly had no real purpose in life prior to his stroke, Donnie is now thankful for his stroke, stating that:

I’m thankful that this happened because if this didn’t happen, I would just be doing the same daily grind that I was, you know, just going to work every day to pay my mortgage.

I have no idea if Donnie is a Christian. Whether he is or he isn’t doesn’t stop his story from reflecting the reality that tragedy can wake people up to their real calling. Just as God used three days and nights in the whale’s belly to force Jonah to obey, God could use tragedy to wake us up when we are traveling the wrong path. So many Christians follow the world’s example, making the pursuit of self-satisfaction their highest calling. When they do, they put the task of satisfying God aside, and God neither deserves nor likes to be in second position. To shake us loose from our worship of self, God may choose to destroy our faith in self by inserting some horrible circumstance into our lives. The sad thing is that, in many cases, we can prevent God from having to use such an attention-getting technique by simply obeying His call in the first place.

If God has clearly shown you what you must do next with your life, don’t put off your obedience. Although obedience is no guarantee of smooth sailing in life – Satan will surely try to discourage the faithful soul – it will prevent God from having to use trouble to shake you loose from worshipping your own lusts.

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