PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

[Chrysostom]

Your urgent plea has reached us and we have taken it to heart with great concern. Be assured that we will remember you in prayer, as you have asked, and bring your need for safety and deliverance before the Lord.

We pray not only for your outward safety, but for the strengthening of your soul. The Lord does not always promise to remove danger at once. Often He does something greater, He teaches the soul to not be enslaved by the fear of death, and He fixes in our minds the hope of immortality, so that we stand above danger rather than merely being pushed out of it. Even Christ in His humanity showed that He knew what it is for the soul to be troubled, and yet He submitted all to the Father for our good. Knowing this, you can be sure He understands your agony and is near to you in it.

We also know that God in His providence can bring benefit through the very things that hurt us. As with Joseph, who was betrayed and imprisoned, God used what others meant for evil to bring him at last to safety and to honor, and to make clear that deliverance comes not by human favor but by divine care. So too, even when help seems delayed, as when the Lord came to His disciples in the fourth watch of the night walking on the sea, He was teaching them not to seek a hasty escape but to endure manfully until He came. If your deliverance tarries, do not think you are forgotten. He sees the right moment and His timing will make His wisdom and mercy more manifest.

Therefore we will pray that God will keep you safe, and in His perfect wisdom completely and permanently bring you out of this harmful situation in a way that is truly safe and leads you closer to Him. We pray that He will guard your body and your soul, give you wisdom to take right and lawful steps for your protection, and surround you with faithful help from His people and from those who can aid you. We pray also that you will lay hold on repentance and on the Scriptures with all your heart, for repentance has great power to set free from the burden of sin and to establish in safety even one who has come to the depths of distress, and the Scriptures are able to keep you safely and to make you strong to help both yourself and others. Do not love ease or security in this present world more than faithfulness to Christ, but seek first what pleases Him, trusting that He who alone saves through Jesus Christ will provide what is truly best.

Let us pray together. Father in heaven, look with mercy upon this dear one who cries out for safety. You know the situation and the dangers that press so hard. We ask in the name of Jesus Christ alone, who is our only Savior, that You would spread Your protection over this life, deliver from all harm, and in Your good providence open a way of complete and lasting escape. Grant peace to a troubled soul, courage to despise fear, and faith to rest in eternal life with You. Lead into all that is holy and true according to Your design, and keep from all that is contrary to Your will, especially in matters of life and marriage and purity where You call us to live within Your holy covenant. Give wisdom, give helpers, give a clear path forward, and form Christ more fully within. We ask this trusting not in our worth but in Your mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We will continue to remember you. Seek the Lord daily, remain in His Word, stay close to faithful believers who can walk with you and help you take wise steps for your safety, and do not hesitate to seek proper help from those God has placed for your protection.

 

[Silas]

Your urgent cry for safety has been heard and is being brought before the Lord. The fear you feel is real, and God knows exactly where you are and what surrounds you.

The Scripture reminds us that safety is not finally found in any human preparation. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but safety belongs to the Lord. Unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build labor in vain. Weapons, locks, plans and people can all be part of ordinary wisdom, but they cannot be what you trust in for your life. Your help does not come from the hills around you. When the psalmist said I will lift up my eyes to the hills, he was asking a question, from where will my help come, and then he answered it, my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He is the one who placed blankets of protection around the earth itself, and He is the same one who can be a shade at your right hand, so that the sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. He is self existent, without beginning or end, and nothing in your situation is outside His knowledge or His power.

God has given a promise to those who are afraid in a threatening place, do not be afraid, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. That is His heart toward His children. He taught us to pray, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory. To be delivered from evil is to be hidden in the provision He has made through Jesus Christ. Just as He delivered His people from bondage in Egypt and brought them through the sea, and just as that deliverance was to be remembered continually, so He has provided deliverance from the bondage of sin through the Lamb of God. When you hide yourself in Christ, you are hidden where judgment cannot reach you.

The Lord also shows that when judgment was about to fall on the cities of the plain, it was held back until Lot was safely out of danger. He hurried to get him to safety first. In the same way, the Lord knows how to withhold what would harm you until you are safely out, and He is mighty to save. Known to Him from the beginning are all His works. He has known from the beginning who He will save, when and how, and the circumstances in which He will do it. You are not forgotten or overlooked in that knowledge.

Pray with confidence that God is able to get you out completely and permanently and safely, but ask Him to do it in His way. In the days of Jeremiah, the people wanted to run to Egypt to escape the danger they feared, and the Lord warned them that the very evil they were trying to escape would follow them there. Not every open door is the Lord's deliverance. Ask Him to make clear the path that is truly His, and to close every path that would only bring the same trouble in another form.

Do not walk through this alone. God has placed believers together as one body, and every part is important for the protection and strength of the others. Stay connected to faithful believers who can pray with you, counsel you with Scripture, and help you take wise and practical steps toward safety. If you are in immediate physical danger, please also seek help from trusted and lawful protection and from those closest to you who can act quickly on your behalf.

I am praying for you, that the Lord will keep you day and night, that He will guard your going out and your coming in, that He will deliver you from this situation completely and permanently in the way that is safest and most honoring to Him, and that you will find your refuge in Jesus Christ, through whom we have forgiveness and eternal life. May He give you wisdom for each next step, peace that guards your heart, and a constant remembrance that He is with you to save and to deliver. You will continue to be remembered in prayer.