There are those times when there doesn’t seem to be any way out—when there doesn’t seem to be any way that you are going to be able to endure your cancer treatment, pay your bills, or reconcile your marriage. There doesn’t seem to be any way that you are going to be able to cope with your grief, break free from your addiction, or find peace in the midst of your anxiety. There doesn’t seem to be any way that you are going to be able to experience healing for your trauma, forgive that other person or yourself…or trust in God again.
Time and again we see in Scripture the transformation of situations in which there didn’t seem to be any way out. There didn’t seem to be any way that Abraham would come down off that mountain with Isaac alive. There didn’t seem to be any way to escape the Egyptians as the Israelites were trapped on the bank of the Red Sea. There didn’t seem to be any way that the woman caught in adultery would be spared a death by stoning. There didn’t seem to be any way that hope would be resurrected after Jesus was crucified.
Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 10 that, in the midst of testing, God will “provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (verse 13b). It’s one of the most profound promises that God makes and keeps over and over again throughout salvation history. It’s one of the most ever present, most redeeming, most demonstrated, most proven, most transforming, most glorious themes in all of the Word of God: There will be a way!
In the midst of anything we are suffering, God speaks into the depths of our hearts something that is quietly tender in its ministry to our lives, while at the same time it is loud speaking the certainty of the power of God: “There will be a way.” God provided a substitute sacrifice for Isaac. The Red Sea parted. The woman caught in adultery was rescued by a Savior who said, “If any one of you is without sin.” And in the most dire situation in which there didn’t’ seem to be a way, hope was resurrected as Jesus was risen!
The Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque have become a frequent reminder to me that, with God, “there will be a way.” There is a tram that takes people 2.7 miles from the base of the Sandia Mountains to the summit. The tram is usually invisible at a distance. But when the sun is shining just so in the morning hours, the base of the tram and its long spanning cables are plainly, beautifully visible from miles away! As you approach the Sandias, most of the time, you see no way to ascend those mountains. But, in the right light, or as you get closer to the mountains, you discover that “there will be a way” to be lifted over what seems to be insurmountable. Whatever you are facing right now, for which there doesn’t seem to be a way out, look again in the light of the Son and see God’s provision for ascending that mountain. Hear Him saying to you: “There will be a way!”
