People have criticized and ridiculed the biblical story of Jonah as allegory, fiction, or fable. However, Jesus Christ believed that it was fact. Some have debated whether the fish was a whale or some other kind of a great fish. The main point of the Jonah account seemed to be that God's will dominates all other concerns in the resolution of any problem. Jonah was asked to go to the capital of Assyria, Israel's enemy, warning them to repent of their sadistic, brutal, and evil ways. Realizing that Assyria would become God's corrective tool used to punish and humiliate Israel, Jonah did not feel inclined to provide any kind of help to his enemy, but had to yield to God's measured coercion of being swallowed and regurgitated by a large fish. God refused to allow Jonah to resign from his responsibility, having made him a spectacle by his unorthodox rescue. When the entire city of Nineveh repented, even in the wake of his unenthusiastic witness, Jonah became angry and truculent. There is no point in pouting about God's will, even when it moves in directions which displease us. We might be too self-centered and self-absorbed to see or accept the big picture.