Your Miracle Is Closer Than You Think — Get Ready!

• So often we come into this place, into this moment, yearning for a change, aching for a breakthrough. And we hear that beautiful promise whispered to our spirit. A miracle is on the way. And oh, our hearts leap. We can feel a quickening inside. We can almost taste the joy of deliverance.
• But beloved, I must tell you something tonight. Something vital. That miracle, as glorious and as certain as it is, does not land in a vacuum. It does not descend into a life that is pretending everything is just fine. No, it is sent to a specific address. It is dispatched to a very particular condition of the heart.
• And so the first and most critical step in preparing for the miracle that is speeding toward you is this. You must have the courage, the raw and humble honesty to recognize your Egypt. What do I mean by your Egypt? I am speaking of that place of captivity in your life.
• It’s not necessarily a physical location, though it can feel like a prison. It is that situation, that circumstance, that persistent struggle that has held you in its grip. It is the thing that makes you sigh with a heaviness when you wake in the morning. It is the worry that sits at your table uninvited at every meal. It is the pain that has woven itself into the fabric of your days.
• The limitation that keeps whispering, “You shall go no further.” For the children of Israel, Egypt was very real. It was the brick kils, the taskmaster’s whips, the endless toil under a merciless sun. It was the smell of bondage. But more than that, it was a state of mind. It was a spirit of defeat. It was the dull acceptance that this was simply their lot in life.
• They had forgotten how to dream of freedom because the burden was so heavy, the routine of despair so familiar. And you, my friend, must look with clear eyes into your own soul tonight. Where is your Egypt? Perhaps it is a sickness in your body that the doctors have named incurable. That is an Egypt. Perhaps it is a broken relationship, a love that has turned cold and left you in a wilderness of loneliness. That is an Egypt.
• Maybe it is a financial burden so crushing you cannot see over the mountain of debt. That is an Egypt. It could be a haunting failure from your past, a regret that follows you like a shadow, hissing that you are disqualified from any future blessing. That too is in Egypt.
• It might even be a deep spiritual dryness, a season where heaven seems like brass and your prayers feel like they fall to the floor. Oh, that is a bitter Egypt indeed. You must name it. You must stop calling it by polite, comfortable names. Stop saying, “I’m going through a little challenge.