The Key That Never Left the Lama's Belt

In 1912, Sadhu Sundar Singh arrived in a remote Tibetan village to preach the gospel. The village lama was furious. He ordered Sundar Singh arrested and thrown into a dry well — a pit of darkness filled with rotting remains of previous prisoners. The heavy iron cover was locked, and the lama fastened the only key to his own belt. There would be no escape.

For three days, Sundar Singh sat in that fetid darkness. He prayed. Believers in villages behind him prayed. On the third night, he heard something impossible — the grinding of metal, the cover lifting open. A rope dropped into the blackness. He grabbed hold and was pulled upward into the cool mountain air. When he reached the top and looked around, no one was there. The well cover was locked shut behind him as though it had never been opened.

Sundar Singh returned to the village and resumed preaching. When the lama heard, he was livid. He demanded to know who had stolen the key. But when he reached down to his belt, the key was still there — exactly where he had secured it days before.

This is the God of Acts 12. The God who sends angels past four squads of Roman soldiers. The God who makes iron chains clatter to the floor of a Jerusalem prison cell. The God who swings open gates that no human hand could unlock. Peter walked free that night not because the guards failed, but because the Almighty never fails. No chain, no gate, no locked well can hold what God has decided to set free.