Frank’s dog tormented cats. So when Thor broke free one day and ran off, Frank got a bad feeling. Sure enough, the dog snatched a poor, unsuspecting cat in its jaws. But then, out of the shadows, came a furious streak of gray—another cat! Launching itself onto Thor’s back, it viciously raked the dog’s eyes and nose. The hapless hound promptly freed his victim, but the attack continued.

“Frank, do something!” exclaimed his shocked wife. “Oh no,” he replied. “He’s had this coming for a long time.” At last the dog slumped to the ground in surrender. The triumphant cat strolled off defiantly, leaving the chastened canine in its wake. “My dog had seen the error of his ways,” Frank laughs. He reports that his mangled mutt has never again attacked a cat.

Had Thor not been humbled, he would have continued to be cruel to cats. Jonah could relate. No, he wasn’t cruel to animals. But he had to hit the very bottom—literally—before he surrendered to God.

You know the story. Jonah had been thrown overboard and was now residing inside a large fish. That’s the moment he got real with God. “I sank down to the very roots of the mountains,” Jonah said. “But you, O Lord my God, snatched me from the jaws of death! As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord” (Jonah 2:6-7).

It took a literal watery grave to get Jonah to turn to God in complete honesty. “My earnest prayer went out to you,” said Jonah (Jonah 2:7). The result was Jonah’s rescue and release (Jonah 2:10).

So often, we seem to change only when we have no other options. But that’s precisely where God meets us! Our dead-end situations are opportunities to turn in raw, desperate honesty to Him.

NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: 1 Corinthians 15:1-20