Earlier this year, I felt spiritually and physically encompassed by an unprecedented season of darkness. Most of my weeks were marked by anxiety-ridden dreams and long periods of exhaustion. Gripped by habitual sin, I experienced enduring interior isolation. Truthfully, I wore a sense of hopelessness for months, desperate for consolation.
Yet, one morning, I woke up with a single word burning in my heart: deliverance.
I was initially hesitant about a word like "deliverance." I questioned the Lord about it constantly.
Doesn’t deliverance seem rather harsh? I’d prefer something along the lines of "progress."
“Behold, I have given you the power 'to tread upon serpents' and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:19).
Today’s Gospel drew me back into the tension that delivered me from hopelessness. In that season, I knew that I could not win a war on my own, but the Lord was still asking me to pick up a sword and trust His uncompromising desire to spend eternity with me. I knew that I had been touched by darkness, but He was teaching me how darkness ultimately has no power over the light of the Kingdom. I knew the weakness of my own authority, but He was reminding me of the very strength of my own witness.
Deliverance begins and ends with a Messiah Who breathes His last breath so that our names might be written into Heaven.
So, I choose to continue in hope, despite my every strength and weakness. I am empowered knowing He desires the Kingdom for me, so much so that He would write my name in Heaven. There is liberation in a Paradise that could be so personal, and a Messiah Who is so life-giving.
Like Jesus, let us become childlike in praise of the Father, Who gave us a Messiah in our greatest need for deliverance.
“Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will” (Luke 10:21).
Our strength is rooted in our unshakable knowledge of Who created us. Are you living out a life filled with His light and love? What small change can you make today to work toward that?
Sarah Elizabeth is a politics pre-law major at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Born and raised in Arizona, she finds great joy in mountains, lattes, American history, and the piano. She is constantly discovering Christ's wild love in the little things.
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