The people of Israel had prayed for years for God to deliver them from Egypt. At the perfect time, God came to set them free from bondage, but they never imagined how deliverance was going to come. They didn’t imagine that the best path to their future, would mean plagues, daily uncertainty, or that they would be hated by the Egyptians. They hadn’t figured that freedom meant leaving their homes and walking away. When they did finally walk out, they found themselves in a desert that had no food, no water and no quick arrival at their destination.

Peter wrote to believers under Roman tyranny. They faced trouble in their life, possible job loss, economic hardship, pressure from relatives and a suspicious society – life was not easy. “In this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials” (1Peter 1:6).

If need be! He said they only endured the trials and troubles that were necessary, for them to become all that God intended them to be. Sometimes we don’t know what we need.

Deliverance and “inheritance gaining” always seems easier in our imagination than in reality. We can see the benefits but we just don’t imagine the pandemic, the process or the people, which God will need to use, to get us there. We all want to grow in spiritual authority, character and faith, but when the means to growth and change comes, we struggle to recognise it. Could it be, that what we are going through now, is our path to growth and global gospel breakthrough? Let faith declare that Father is freeing us from unseen fetters. And let our hope be anchored to Him who is beyond the veil but ever-present and ever attentive to our needs. Certainly, we are being prepared for greater effectiveness, but enlargement doesn’t come easy.

Friend, you too, have asked to grow and be delivered. We usually cannot become what God wants us to become, without some shaking. God is raising a people that are free, strong, mature and unshakable. “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5:10 ). The present sufferings cannot be compared to the glory yet to be revealed. Our future “freedom” will be infinitely better than the safety of sameness, and the rule of Egypt. In the times ahead, we will say those “dark days” were the door of our deliverance.