That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. – Isaiah 44:28, King James Version (KJV)

It was a tough job being a prophet of God in the Old Testament. Most of the time, God’s messages to Israel were rough, tough, and piercing, so the prophets normally found themselves making people mad. Some of the prophets were persecuted and others were executed simply for bringing the messages of repentance that God wanted them to bring. Every now and then, however, a prophet had the chance to deliver some positive news to Israel. Isaiah was one of those lucky ones.

Isaiah was one of the prophets that foretold Israel’s seventy-year captivity in Babylon, so most of his messages were about punishment. But in Isaiah 44:28, Isaiah had the privilege of informing Israel of their coming deliverance from captivity, naming Cyrus the Persian as God’s deliverer for His people. What is so significant about this? In Isaiah 44:28, we find a wonderful truth: before we ever enter our trials, God has already prepared the way out of them.

Trouble is a fact of life, and if we are not in the midst of trouble right now, we will be sooner or later. One comfort we can cling to while in the midst of the trouble is that our Provider and our Shield came up with our escape plan before we ever knew we needed an escape plan. There is no promise from God that our trials will be short or easy. But He does promise to never leave us or forsake us during our trials, and He does promise to provide the way out of the trials once we’ve learned the lessons that the trials were intended to teach us.

Do you feel like you are trapped in a prison of trouble right now? If so, take some heart in the fact that your Lord has already planned on how to break you out of jail. He’s just waiting for the right time to do it, and you need to be patient, long-suffering, and receptive to God’s teachings until that time arrives.

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