Day 260: The Power of a Simple Statement

“So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord, and Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.” “Well,” I said to myself, “that’s amazing. Why did Jonah’s simple statement have such a powerful effect on such a large and wicked city?” I concluded was because he’d been through the belly of the whale. And the amazing thing is the entire population of Nineveh repented.