Jailbreak
Do you pray for the elimination of your enemies? Or for their conversion?
Acts 12:6b-7, 10a.
Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside.
Was Peter’s jailbreak a mystical miracle? Does it have to be?
Perhaps the chains fall off Peter’s wrists because one of the “sleeping” soldiers unlocked them by moonlight while Peter was asleep. They’re able to tiptoe unnoticed around the guards because a collaborator on the inside drugged their evening meal with soporifics. The gate opens for them the way it does every midnight - they’ve just timed their approach to it perfectly.
My faith in the salvific works of God doesn’t require them to be arcane or out of human control. I think it’s actually more astonishing that God organized such an effective resistance team seemingly out of nowhere. One that stayed so well hidden from the authorities that their involvement is absent from all records. When Herod asked how this happened, answering with, “Who knows! Must have been an angel,” saved lives and left the co-conspirators in place to assist the next incarcerated revolutionary.
Do you pray for the elimination of your enemies? Or for their conversion? The resistance already has allies stationed in unlikely places and all Good needs to succeed is for Evil to fall asleep at the job.
— Kate Davoli