Even While You Are In Bondage

¹“And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage. And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.” (Mosiah 24:13-14). If we find ourselves in bondage or captivity or are otherwise waiting on the Lord to deliver us from an unbearable situation, we might be tempted to conclude that until that blessed delivery comes, our hopes and dreams and ambitions, our very lives even, are put on hold. We might feel that we just have to suck it up and grit our teeth and inure ourselves to the idea that, until our bondage is over, we are going to be miserable pretty much the whole time. But suppose the Lord decides to visit us even while we are in bondage. Are we so determined to play the martyr and wallow in our bitterness that we will push the Lord away even as He tries to lighten our burdens? If we are struggling with chronic illness, or chronic loneliness, or even actual incarceration or bondage, and there is just no end in sight to our nearly constant burdens and suffering, especially if the afflictions that have befallen us are through no fault of our own, it is natural to assume that the Lord has ceased to love or to care about us. When these burdens seem to swallow up so much of our time and attention and effort that it is hard to separate them from our very identity, we may feel that any moments of relief or peace or joy that pierce through the impenetrable cloud of darkness that has been smothering us for so long are at the very least too little too late or, even worse, a betrayal of who we are. If God really cared, He would just deliver us already. Anything else is just half measures. But is that all that God is good for? Does His power only really count if He can take away every bad thing all at once? Can we not find comfort in the fact that even if there are good and important reasons that our bondage and our suffering must be prolonged, God still visits us in our afflictions and occasionally eases our burdens so that for brief, blessed moments we do not feel them? If we have covenanted to endure to the end, and the end has not yet come, can we not sometimes endure while buoyed up by the pure love of Christ? Even if we can not right now do everything that we want, it does not mean that we are unable to cultivate such moments of peace and joy and light and love as are still available to us. If our burdens may not yet be removed, let us at least accept with grateful hearts that sometimes they are lightened. If the Lord has not yet come to deliver us from our captivity, let us at least not turn our backs on Him when He comes to visit. When we are finally delivered, we will be able to stand as witnesses that Christ really does care about us and walk beside us, even in the very worst moments of our lives.