Prisons and Pathways

I have been reading a story about a man who is thrown into jail for a crime he didn’t commit. For a girl who grew up in a small town and who also seldom watches a movie, I have been intrigued and horrified. My heart has also burned proud and amazed at the resilience of human beings. That, and the sure hand of God in people’s lives.

If anyone looks like they might be vaguely interested, I tell them what new atrocity has occurred in the book or I read to them of prisoners peering up at seeds growing on the windowsill or studying stork hatchlings in a nest, huge wonders in the hell hole they find themselves in. I go through the days wondering when they are going to release him, but it’s not any time soon because the book is big and I’m only half way. I can hardly bear it.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my bible to Hebrews 13 and read, “continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are ill-treated as if you yourselves were suffering.” People being falsely accused and mistreated is not a new story. Thousands of years ago, a reminder was sent out to those of us who are loving our freedom and enjoying our comforts. It came to me just as I find myself invested in this captive’s story and wishing for his exemption.

Not a day later, I was tidying out drawers when I found an old notebook. I opened it up randomly and my eyes settled on a verse in the middle of the page: Isaiah 51 v 14 – 16. “The cowering prisoners will soon be set free…”

“Coincidence!” you cry, but I think not. Nothing is random in this world where the planets are all aligned and the seasons have never failed to come and go, sunrises and sunsets rising and setting at their appointed times. I hear the Lord’s heart beating constant through the ages, a God who sees, loves and makes a way where there seems to be no way. “I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” – Isaiah 43 v 19

You cannot even make this stuff up; everywhere I walk or drive, people seem to be laying new driveways or paving stones. So many roads are being repaired too. It could be that the rains aren’t far away and this job needs to be done before the torrents arrive, but I’ve heard that often times what is unfolding in the natural, seen realm, is also unfolding in the supernatural, unseen realm. Just as people are so much more than physical beings, with their souls and spirits vast and difficult to measure, there are things going on all around us that we often aren’t even aware of. In a moment of grace, or when we really listen or seek, we might become privy to information that is not obvious to the naked eye.

And so all this mindfulness on captives and new roads and an intense hope that God is making a way and will set people free when I see the cleanest puffs of pink galloping over a wall like a wave tumbling over to flood everything. A Bougainvillea in a colour I have never seen before, a hue that might only be seen on a special evening when all the gold of the sun has swept away the blue replacing the sky with reds, pinks and oranges, is leaping out of its confines, beyond the walls it has been planted behind.

There are many cars behind me and so I cannot suddenly pull over to witness the spectacle like I want to. It’s there in my mind’s eye to stay, though. God is making a way, freedom for the captives and so much beauty ahead that it cannot be contained