A pastor observed a little girl standing outside the Sunday school classroom, waiting for her parents to pick her up. The pastor noticed that she clutched a storybook under her arm with the title “Jonah and the Whale.”

Feeling mischievous, he knelt beside the girl and asked, “What’s that you have in your hand?”

“This is my storybook about Jonah and the whale,” she answered.

“Tell me something,” he continued. “Do you believe that story about Jonah and the whale?”

The girl said, “Of course I believe it.”

The pastor inquired further. “You really believe a man can be swallowed up by a big whale, stay inside him all that time, and come out okay?”

She declared, “Yes! This story is in the Bible, and we talked about it in Sunday school today.”

Then the pastor asked, “Can you prove to me this story is true?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “Well, when I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah.”

Finally the pastor asked, ” What if Jonah is not in heaven?”

The girl put her hands on her hips and sternly declared, “Then you can ask him!”