Prisoners of Hope

“Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee.”  Zechariah 9:12

 Prisoners of hope–seems like an oxymoron.  How could someone be a prisoner and yet be hopeful?  People become prisoners for many reasons.  Committing a crime, getting caught and convicted is the first thought a person has when considering the term “prisoner”.  However, people’s minds can be imprisoned by their fears and other troubling thoughts and yet their physical being can be free as a bird.  On the other hand, a person can be locked behind bars or imprisoned in a body of affliction, but his or her mind can be free.

A 17th century British poet, Richard Lovelace, wrote a poem while imprisoned for political reasons, “To Althea from Prison”.  The first two lines of the fourth stanza are as follows:  “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.”  A physical prison cannot enslave the mind unless the one who is imprisoned allows it.  It matters what we allow to engulf our thought processes.  Paul wrote in II Timothy 1:7 that God gave us “a sound mind”, one that is healthy, stable, and sensible.  When our minds are focused on the Lord and living righteously, our lives will become mentally and emotionally balanced, filled with hope and joy.  On the other hand, to focus on every problem, every “what if scenario”, every mistake, and every missed opportunity incessantly only leads to depression, doubt, and distress.  Yes, there are bad things in the past that we have done or good things that we failed to do, the regrets or guilt of which need to be settled in our minds through repentance, restoration, and/or restitution, but we need to go ahead and “bite the bullet” and be done with it so that we can get on with life.  As the shoe commercial says, “Just do it.”

Zechariah was a prophet of God who lived during the reign of the Persian king Darius at the time that the captured Jews were being allowed to return from captivity in Babylon.  They had been in captivity for around 70 years, but, during the reign of Cyrus of Persia, it was decreed by him that the people of Judah could be allowed to return to Jerusalem as foretold by the prophet Jeremiah (II Chronicles 36:22-23).  Thus the people of Judah, to whom Zechariah’s message was written, were very familiar with captivity.  After all that time away from home, the people of Judah finally turned from idolatry and returned to the LORD allowing Him to capture their hearts once again.  The principle is the same for us.  When we turn to the Lord, He will capture us with hope, and all the trouble that we endure in this life will be compensated with a double portion of God’s goodness.  God is good, all the time.