Beloved, we are a people who have been delivered. The word Hebrew is thought to mean "from the other side." That might point to a geographical beginning, ancestors who crossed rivers and borders. But it also stirs memories of God delivering Moses and the people from Pharaoh across the other side of the sea. In that sense, God's deliverance means we were there and now we're here.
And the people of God have long seen deliverance as part of their identity. You see it repeatedly throughout the psalms. God parted seas, broke chains and made the impossible possible. Thankfully, that story doesn't stop with the Old Testament.
God's beloved today live in deliverance. In Jesus, God has broken our captivity. We are freed from our sin, shame, fear and even the sting of death itself. As our liturgy affirms, Jesus frees us for joyful obedience. So, we may not call ourselves Hebrew, but God has brought us from the other side.
The other side of shame and guilt. The other side of fear and doubt. The other side of bitterness, emptiness and whatever once claimed our lives.
And when we tell our deliverance stories, we are echoing what God's people have always known: We are a delivered people.
When you feel like you almost didn't make it, you realize what got you through. That's why the psalmist says, "If it had not been for the Lord." When you remember it was God who made the world, it will be easier to trust God with yours. Notice the writer doesn't pretend everything was fine. It wasn't. "We have escaped like a bird from the fowler's snare." In other words, we were stuck. Caught. Cornered.
As a child of God, you should expect that some seasons will feel like a trap. But God has delivered us.
Stay blessed...john | 
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