Set Free — Morning Devotions

By Chris WittsTuesday 2 Nov 2021Morning Devotions with Chris WittsDevotionsReading Time: 5 minutes

I wonder if you can remember back to October 1987 when a little 18-month-old girl named Jessica McClure had fallen into a well shaft in Midland, Texas. She had only been left alone for a few moments in her aunt’s backyard.

She had playfully dangled her feet over a very innocent-looking eight-inch-wide hole in the ground. But when Jessica tried to stand up, she slipped into the hole, one leg up and one leg down, and found herself wedged in the pipe 22 feet below the surface.

Rescuers drilled a 29-foot shaft parallel to the well and then bored a five-foot horizontal tunnel through solid rock in an attempt to reach Jessica. All the while, medical people were worried that dehydration and shock would take her life before the rescuers could get there. The rescue took far longer than anyone expected. The solid rock, plus equipment failure, meant that it took 58 hours before they could reach little Jessica. But they finally bored through and reached her—but the way she was wedged in the pipe, they couldn’t move her!

Medical personnel hooked up monitors to her and they discovered the worst—that she didn’t have any time left. That critical point between life and death had arrived. The medical personnel conferred and they told the rescuers pull hard—she has no time left; you may have to break her to save her! And they pulled! And miraculously, little Jessica popped free without any serious injuries. It was an amazing rescue and many thousands of people watched this unfold on TV news around the world, and prayed for her recovery. She had been rescued from overwhelming odds.

God can make a way

Life is sometimes like that—a desperate effort to overcome difficulties or the odds we may face, whatever they are. No matter how bad it looks, no matter how hopeless and helpless we feel, there is God. And God can and often does make a way.

We learn that this God is none other than the God that made heaven and earth, this is the God who was Lord over history, who weaves every event of history into his perfect plan of salvation for his people. This is a God who:

• is Lord over every cell in your body and mine.
• cannot be handcuffed.
• is omnipotent.
• can deliver.

God is on our side. This God is for us always, even when you and I are against him; even when we sin and turn our backs on him. He still is for us, and my friends, that is the awesomeness of grace.

That this God loves you and me so unconditionally and infinitely in Jesus Christ; that this God by the power of his Holy Spirit is for us and can make a way for you and me no matter what we are up against. This God is for us, this God can deliver.

I can think of a song that says God can make a way when there is no other way. The song “God Will Make a Way” was written by Don Moen on an airplane as he travelled to attend his nephew’s funeral. His nephew had been killed in a car accident and these words came to him. The song lyrics say:

God will make a way
where there seems to be no way.
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me.

He will be my guide,
hold me closely to His side,
with love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way.

By a roadway in the wilderness, He’ll lead me
and rivers in the desert will I see.
Heaven and earth will fade but His Word will still remain,
He will do something new today.

“When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them.”  – Psalm 91:15 – NLT

God promises to deliver us

Psalm 50:15 says: “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me”.

The story is told of an only survivor of a wreck who was thrown on an uninhabited island. After a while he managed to build himself a hut, in which he placed the little that he had saved from the wreck. He prayed to God for deliverance, and anxiously scanned the horizon each day to hail any passing ship. One day on returning from a hunt for food he was horrified to find his hut in flames—all he had had gone up in smoke. The worst had happened it seemed. But that which seemed to have happened for the worst was in reality for the best. The next day a ship arrived. We saw your smoke signal, the captain said. If our lives are in God’s hands “all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

Wallace Johnson, builder of numerous Holiday Inn motels and convalescent hospitals, said:

When I was 40 years old, I worked in a sawmill. One morning the boss told me, “You’re fired!” Depressed and discouraged, I felt like the world had caved in on me. It was during the depression, and my wife and I greatly needed the small wages I had been earning. When I went home, I told my wife what had happened. She asked, “What are you going to do now?” I replied, “I’m going to mortgage our little home, and go into the building business.” My first venture was the construction of two small buildings. Within five years, I was a multi-millionaire!

Today, if I could locate the man who fired me, I would sincerely thank him for what he did. At the time it happened, I didn’t understand why I was fired. Later, I saw that it was God’s unerring and wondrous plan to get me into the way of His choosing!

Psalm 91:15 says: “…I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”