GREAT ESCAPES
John Gerard was a Jesuit priest held captive in the Tower of London in 1597.
One historian writes, “After hacking away at the stones around the door to his cell, Gerard sneaked past the guards in the corridors one night and reached a high wall overlooking the moat. Down below, a boat he had arranged through a sympathetic prison warden waited in the darkness. The boatmen tossed him a rope, which Gerard tied to a nearby cannon. When he received a signal that his accomplices had tied off the other end of the rope across the moat, Gerard slid down the rope to freedom. He was never recaptured.”*
We don’t often associate escapes like these with God, but consider what the following verses tell us about some of our biblical ancestors.
“...some shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength…” (Hebrews 11:33-34).
No doubt this list refers to guys like Daniel who survived a lions’ den. And Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were thrown into a fiery furnace but didn’t get burned. Talk about great escapes!
Although most of us don’t face imprisonment as dramatic as these stories, still all of us face other types of confinement that can be just as damaging. And I don’t mean physical restraint, like lockdown, I mean spiritual confinement.
Like the prison of disappointment.
All of us have faced circumstances that just haven’t worked out. And if we’re honest, we might be carrying around disappointment — even toward God. “Lord, where were you?” “How could this happen?”
Unmet expectations.
Unexpected pain.
Deep loss.
Life-changing mistakes.
These things keep our hearts and minds locked in disappointment and disillusionment. God wants to set us free.
And what about the prison of fear?
Probably the best known quote about fear is President Franklin Roosevelt’s inaugural address in 1933: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
In spiritual terms that includes things like…
Fear of what others think.
Fear of failing.
Fear of loosing dignity.
Fear of being rejected.
Fear of the unknown.
Most of the time when I approach an exploit God wants me to do, these kinds of fears rise up in my heart. My temptation is to try and muster up a little courage through some kind of positive declarations that hype me up. That’s not bad, but it’s not God’s best. Our job is not to somehow find the strength, our job is to find God, and let him be our strength.
God is your deliverer. He’s your connection on the outside of your prisons, who sneaks you the tool to chisel around the edge of the door. He’s the one who’s waiting in the dark of the night with a rope to throw up to you. He’s the one in the boat who carries you off to safety. He wants to give you all you need to escape the prison of disappointment and fear. This is how God intends to convert retreat into the advancement of his Kingdom and glory.
* Lexi Krock, “History's Great Escapes” PBS, November 16, 2004, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/history-great-escapes