A Vivid Scriptural example of spiritually mental healing is that which concerns the prophet Jonah. God had sent him to Nineveh to warn the people to forsake their wickedness, but instead of obeying, Jonah fled from his allotted task on a ship going to Tarshish. When a storm arose, the sailors, upon Jonah's request and confession of disobedience, cast him into the sea, where he was swallowed up by "a great fish"; and he was "in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."
The account continues: "Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, . . . I will look again toward thy holy temple. . . . Salvation is of the Lord." After he had offered this humble prayer, he was cast out by the fish and proceeded to Nineveh, "according to the word of the Lord."
This account portrays a wrong mental state in which the true qualities of obedience and loyalty seem to be swallowed up by materiality; but when Jonah turned in prayer to God, and was willing to part with the false sense of self-will, he was quickly freed both mentally and physically. Only a change in his state of consciousness was needed. His true nature could neither be imprisoned by willfulness nor engulfed by disobedience, and when he was mentally ready to turn again toward right doing, to fidelity and obedience, the situation was quickly changed for the better.
