The enemy seeks to hold your son in bondage as surely as Pharaoh held Israel. But remember, the Prince of Darkness has no power beyond what God’s inscrutable will permits for a season, and he cannot hold a single lamb that the Great Shepherd deigns to keep. That girl, whatever her designs, is but an instrument in a deeper struggle, a battle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places. The serpent’s venom has long been at work, and you feel the sting; yet the Deliverer is mighty.
Look it in the face: does not this dread bear the cloven foot? The evil one is making you doubt your own Father, whispering that His ear is shut. But He has not shut His ear, nor can He ever. The Lord brought Israel forth from Egypt, but they had cried unto Him by reason of their sore bondage, and they did not receive the blessing without desiring it, yes, and sighing for it. So sigh and cry on, mother. The deliverance will come through divine power alone, the same power that loosed the captives when the Passover Lamb was slain. For your son, the Lamb has been slain; the ransom has been found. Christ gave heaven’s brightest jewel that He might redeem him from all iniquity. That truth must be your anchor.
Yet beware of the natural impulse to overcome evil with evil. Cursing the girl, returning wrath for wrath, that is the devil’s own method, and it never succeeds. The arrow of vengeance, once shot, often wounds the archer more than the target. You cannot drive out darkness with darkness. The command is plain: “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” Pour out prayer, not poison. Plead the blood of Jesus over that household, even for that blinded girl, for she too walks in a shadow from which only Christ can rescue.
Think of the father Jacob, who cried, “Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.” Yet Joseph was preserved to be the very means of drawing his family back from famine. What seems ruinous today God may yet weave into a song of deliverance. This trial may be the rod of chastening upon your son, and what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? The rod is not for destruction, but for awakening. Pray that his eyes be opened, not by your own frantic efforts, but by the gentle yet irresistible conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of bondage may drive him to cry out in true repentance, but remember: that same Spirit will then bear witness with his spirit that he is a child of God, and sonship is a settled fact, never to be altered under any possible circumstances.
Stand firm. Cease the anxious posting and turn your keyboard into a prayer stool. The Lord has heard. In due time, He will bring him forth, and you shall declare the works of the Lord. Do not receive again a spirit of bondage to fear. Your son is not beyond the reach of that pierced Hand. The infernal lion may roar, but he cannot rend one whom the Shepherd marks as His own. Soon, when the deliverance comes, you will draw water with joy from the wells of salvation and recount this very trial as a stanza of praise.
