July 16

“For this I can say, I never since played the coward, but joyfully entered prisons as palaces, telling mine enemies to hold me there as long as they could:  and in the prisonhouse I sung praises to my God, and esteemed the bolts and locks put upon me as jewels, and in the Name of the Eternal God I always got the victory, for they could keep me there no longer than the determined time of my God.”  William Dewsbury, 1688, Daily Readings from Quaker Writings, 7/16

All of my readings for today pointed in some way to the prisons we are in.  Every Christian is in a sense in a prison--the world that we live in.  We may not be in a physical prison as William Dewsbury was, but we may face some form of persecution or loss of liberty because we profess Christ.  How wonderful it is if we can see these “bolts and locks” as jewels.  But Eugenia Price has been writing about our personal prisons these past few days.  These are the ones we often do not see.  Their bars are so far apart we can see right past them, but they still do their job of holding us.  As I examined my own self-made prisons I realized I have several, but I can put them all under the category of unbelief for it is here that the others find their nutrition.  My prisons of selfishness and need to be right feed on the unbelief that still exists in my mind.  It is this unbelief that allows old fears to gain a foothold in my life, blinding me to the fact that I am now a child of God.  Scripture tells me that if I will honor God--show respect to Him--He will honor me (1 Samuel 2:30).  It is in the act of humbling myself before God that my prison doors shall be flung open.

“The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor.”  Proverbs 15:33