Spiritual Encounters With God: A Jonah Moment

James R. Aist

“I called to the Lord out of my distress, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.” (Jonah 2:2)

It was the second week of January, 2023, and I was in the hospital for a heart catheterization. If there was any serious arterial blockage, then they would install stents to open the arteries, as needed. My operation was scheduled for early morning, with the expectation that I would be able to go home the same day. However, something went terribly wrong, and I ended up spending the next nine days in the general hospital, followed by nine more days in the rehabilitation hospital. This encounter occurred while I was in the general hospital.

I was in the Intensive Care Unit for the first two days. During most of this time, I was either sleeping or hallucinating, but for brief moments I was awake and in touch with reality. It was during this time in the ICU that I had a very intense, but brief, encounter with God. I was in a place that was void of any light, so I couldn’t see anything. I was not even aware of my body. But, I could somehow sense the very close and real presence of God in front of me. Then a voice began to speak into my mind, describing to me the very dire situation I was in; that I didn’t understand what was happening to me or how serious it was, and that the doctors were doing everything they knew of to help me, but even they didn’t know what to do in order to pull me through. Then I focused my attention intensely on God. I very passionately described to Him how dire my situation was (as if He didn’t already know). I told Him that I don’t know how to survive this situation, and that the doctors don’t know either. And, I told Him that I know He is the only One who can keep me from dying, that He was my only hope to survive this ordeal. It’s fair to say that I made a very passionate and desperate plea for God to heal me and enable me to live on. To my knowledge, there was no response from Him at that time. With that, the encounter ended, and I lost awareness of anything for the time being.

After 18 days I was finally able to go home, and I have since made a full recovery. Subsequently, while my wife and I were studying the book of Jonah, it dawned on me that this experience in the hospital, while differing in most details, had a striking resemblance to the experience of Jonah in the belly of the whale (See Jonah 2:2, above). This fact confirms, to my way of thinking, that this encounter was, in fact, with God.

In retrospect, I believe that there are at least two take-home lessons for me here. First, I am immensely grateful to God for granting my request. And second, I am motivated to respond to this miracle by making good use of the time I have left to glorify God while I am still on this planet.

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