The Escape Key

 

Harry Houdini started out as any ordinary magician. He called himself the “king of cards” yet he competent but not particularly skilled sleight-of-hand artist.  Yet there was one thing that set Houdini apart, He was an escape artist.

  It wasn’t just the prepared acts he created that mystified audiences. He would challenge Scotland-yard coppers and Siberian prison guards to try to contain him. He invited the public to devise contraptions to hold him, including nailed packing crates, riveted boilers, wet sheets, mail bags, and even the belly of a whale that had washed ashore in Boston. It seemed no one or nothing could hold him.

   The key to his escapes wasn’t a physical one, however, it was mental. As one writer told it was his belief that the means to escape was possible and was within his reach. He believed he could. And then he made it so.

  That’s an idea we need to have as well. Too many times we are trapped in a prison of can’t. We can’t overcome. There is no way out. We are stuck. There is no hope.

 Consider the words of 1^st Corinthians 10:13;

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

  When we seem surrounded by sin, encompassed by temptation, there is a way of escape. And it is within our reach. It may take some work. I may stretch us and strain us. But there is an escape.

  Believe you can and make it so.