No Way Out

The scene is familiar, clichéd. The villain’s footsteps ring in the hall outside the castle’s library door. The heroine frantically scans the library’s musty interior for a back door exit. Nothing.  The windows are narrow and barred.  She’s moments away from the dark terror of the villain’s intents.  She backs toward the far wall as the footfalls cease and the latch on the door begins to move.  She collapses against the bookcase behind her…and it moves, swinging smoothly on a massive hinge, offering her a secret passageway to safety.

I Corinthians 10:13 tells us God will provide a way of escape when things look hopeless.  If we discover that the escape route we’re contemplating is not in line with the teachings of God’s Word, it cannot be from Him.  There is some other way yet to be revealed.  Maybe we need to lean against the bookcase before it will move, or throw ourselves on the mercy of the Lord before the secret passageway will open.

When we have exhausted all options in a difficult situation, why do we assume the Lord’s intelligence is exhausted, too?  Why presume He too has run out of ideas?

This is the same God who created at least five different methods of healing blindness.  Once Jesus made a mud poultice out of His spittle and instructed the blind person when to wash it off (John 9:1-7).  Two other times, as recorded in Scripture, He merely touched the eyes of the blind and sight was restored (Matthew 9:27-29 and Matthew 20:34).  The Bible records that some who were blind were healed when the Spirit of the Lord stirred to full health and sight when Jesus merely spoke it into being (Matthew 12:22, Mark 10:46).

Have you wondered why the Lord chose to use so many varied methods of healing?  Couldn’t He have used the mud bath method every time?  Or the moving waters method?  Why is it important that He used a variety of means?

For those times in our lives when we are absolutely baffled about how the Lord will answer a need or solve a problem—ours.

Reading about the Lord’s creative genius in restoring sight gives us hope to know He is well able to invent a creative means of rescuing us when we feel devoid of clever ideas.

PRAYER—Father God, teach me to lean on the wonder of Your creative genius when life’s challenges paint me into a corner.  Remind me by Your Spirit that when my ideas are gone and my reservoir of hope runs dry, when I’m tempted to give up, You always offer a secret passageway to safety.

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it,” I Corinthians 10:13 KJV.

Today’s devotional is by Cynthia Ruchti, writer and producer of the radio ministry THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME and current president of American Christian Fiction Writers.  Cynthia’s debut novel—They Almost Always Come Home—releases from Abingdon Press in Spring 2010.  www.cynthiaruchti.com.