Through the Sewage Pipe to Freedom

In The Shawshank Redemption, there is a moment that still takes my breath away. Andy Dufresne has spent nineteen years chipping through a concrete wall with a rock hammer no bigger than his palm. Nineteen years of hiding the evidence, nineteen years of patience when every rational voice said to quit. And when he finally breaks through, his reward is not sunshine — it is a sewage pipe. Five hundred yards of raw filth standing between him and the river on the other side.

Andy crawls in anyway. He drags himself through that darkness, through that stench, through that suffocating tunnel, inch by miserable inch. And when he emerges on the other side, he lifts his arms to the sky as the rain washes him clean.

The Apostle Paul understood that kind of perseverance. He wrote to the church in Rome, "We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:3-4). Paul never promised that the path between where we are and where God is leading would be pleasant. He promised it would be worth it.

Some of you are in the tunnel right now. The walls are close. The air is thick. You cannot see the end. But the God who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. Keep crawling. The rain is waiting.