Standing in the Rain

In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne spends nineteen years wrongfully imprisoned, enduring cruelty and injustice behind walls designed to crush the human spirit. But Andy never stops believing that freedom is possible. Night after night, he chips away at the wall of his cell with a tiny rock hammer — a tool so small his friend Red calls it something that would take six hundred years to tunnel out with.

Then comes the night Andy finally breaks through. He crawls through five hundred yards of sewage pipe — through the worst filth imaginable — and emerges on the other side into a thunderstorm. He tears off his prison shirt, lifts his arms to the sky, and lets the rain wash over him. It is one of the most powerful images of liberation ever filmed.

That scene preaches. Because the freedom God offers us in Christ looks remarkably similar. We don't escape sin by walking through a clean, well-lit corridor. We crawl through the mess of confession, through the humbling acknowledgment of everything broken in us. It is uncomfortable. It is undignified. But on the other side of that surrender, the living water of the Holy Spirit washes us clean.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." Not partial freedom. Not supervised freedom. Total, arms-wide-open, standing-in-the-rain freedom.

Whatever wall you have been chipping away at — keep going. The storm of grace is waiting on the other side.