Returning to the stronghold that unlocks tomorrow

Unless you are guarding your heart it can be very easy to become fluent in disappointment. It doesn’t take long or much to trigger it. One or two setbacks, a few prayers unanswered in the way we expected or when we wanted, and suddenly we’ve built a whole theology around what didn’t happen. And what we once called ‘waiting on the Lord’ slowly morphs into something quieter, less expectant, almost cynical. We still sing our favourite Bethel songs, still lift holy hands, but internally, there’s a gentle sigh. Something inside has sat down.

Flick over to Zechariah 9:12 on your bible app for some direction. Zechariah comes like a prophet-warrior with the heart-stirring challenge, “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.”

That’s not just some nice words to give you a cosy feeling. Turn the television on and flick through the news channels. You need that comfort, things are not getting better except in Donald Trump’s imagination. You need some good news, and this is where it starts. The words of the prophet bring a command and a promise rolled into one. It’s a summons back to the place where hope lives – not temporary, vague optimism or wishful thinking – but covenantal hope, the kind that is rock solid, unmoveable. Hope, in the kingdom of God, is not an abstract feeling. It’s a location. A stronghold. And we’re told to return to it. It has an address.

Tattoo this on your head so you can see it every time you look in the mirror, “there’s a danger in letting disappointment define your direction”. Left unchecked, it builds its own fortress – walls unbelievably and unimaginably thick with self-preservation and low expectations. Very low. But the gospel doesn’t call us to bunker down in fear or fatalism. It calls us to return.

That word assumes you’ve been there before and that you’ve tasted something better. And maybe you have. It is what it is until it’s not. That time has arrived. Maybe you can remember what it felt like to really trust again. To risk. To believe God for something that hadn’t yet appeared. At the heart of this we’re speaking revival. Resuscitation. Renewal. Restoration. All the best things sometimes start with the same letter, except when it comes to ‘rubble’.

Zechariah is writing to a people still sitting in the rubble. Sadly, not everyone had made it back from exile. The temple project had stalled, overbudget, overpromised and under delivered. The future looked more like a theory than a reality. And into that half-finished world, God doesn’t offer platitudes. He names them: prisoners of hope. Not captives of Babylon. Not victims of their past. Prisoners of hope. What a phenomenal phrase. Maybe that is a better one for a tattoo.

This isn’t a gentle invitation to feel a bit better about things. It’s a radical reorientation. A daily, deliberate returning. We live in a day where life is experienced at blistering speed, as if it were overclocked and running an Intel Core i9-14900KF at over 9.12GHz, with culture that wants to rush ahead, to fix and to move on, but the kingdom calls us back first – back to the stronghold. Yes, I like computers.

It’s a call back to the place of promise, where our confession isn’t about what’s gone wrong, but focusing on what God has said. And, as we do so, every time we return, we find that hope isn’t empty – it’s inhabited. Christ meets us there.

Now hope, real hope, always risks something. It speaks the truth about where we are, whilst refusing to let the past have the final word or define us. That’s why returning to hope requires both confession and planning. Confession names the loss, the disappointment, the ache. But planning – that’s where hope starts to flex, assert, build and encourage. Planning under promise means you begin to build again, not because the odds have improved, but because the Word still stands.

Don’t mistake this for soft spirituality. This is hard-won trust. This is showing up to the ruins with a blueprint and a prayer. It’s dragging your weary heart back to the Word each morning and daring to believe restoration is not a metaphor. It’s a movement.

And here’s the thing about God’s restoration – it doesn’t balance the books. It doubles them. That’s what He said. Double. Not a return to the starting point, but a divine overcorrection. That’s grace. That’s the gospel. Not fair, but full. Forget the clock right now, go back and read this paragraph and let it sink in.

No, you just skimmed it – go and read it again.

So if you’ve been living in the borderlands of resignation, this is your summons, your call, your mandate. Return. Not to how things used to be, but to the place where hope is built on promise, not performance.

Return to the stronghold of hope, even if your hands are trembling or aching or your prayers feel small or inconsequential.

Return anyway. The gates are open.

Maybe you should ignore the tattoo suggestions.

Breakfast with a second chance. You’re invited.

Have you ever had regret so intense it shook you down to the core? Despite my obvious godliness, sensitivity and gentle spirit, I have.

Flicking on the bible app to that ‘awful’ night, Peter had. He knew that regret. Not just like the flickering flame that warmed his hands in that courtyard that night, but also that fiery regret that that surged in his heart when the feathered creature crowed. It was the kind of regret or failure that doesn’t get shook off with a few deep breaths and a new day. It permeates weary bones, makes demands, unnerves you. And yet, in contrast, because the story is not yet over, there’s Jesus – risen, radiant, cooking breakfast on a beach for the one who sank and swore.

John 21 throws open the drama, not with rebuke, but with the waft of a chip shop – fish on coals sizzling gently and bread in hand (there’s a few profound things to consider here!) That’s the gospel’s quiet scandal… grace, not as a concept, but as a Person who cooks. This is no male-bonding sentimental gesture. It’s a declaration. Jesus isn’t looking to rewind history, to pretend the denial never happened. Oh! Elephant in the room has now been mentioned.

That denial. Those denials.

He meets Peter at the same kind of fire where he fell apart. That’s how restoration works. Not by forgetting, but by redeeming.

And then comes the question. Not “Why did you deny Me?” but “Do you love Me?” Three times. It stings. It smarts. It heals. Each repetition not rubbing salt, but surgically sewing back dignity. Jesus is not interested in Peter’s competence. He wants his heart. Not his guilt, but his love.

This is the ocean-deep difference between remorse and repentance. Remorse stalls at the charcoal fire, blame shifts. It loops the failure, plays the scene back, rehearses the shame. But repentance, rises to its feet and walks forward confidently when Jesus calls. It doesn’t pretend nothing happened – it trusts that something greater did. Peter could’ve stayed in that boat, looking like a battered sack of potato’s, haunted but useful, instead, Jesus calls him to breakfast. Then to leadership.

Feed My sheep. Tend My lambs. Lead again.

Not because you’re flawless-absolutely flawless, but because grace feeds the fallen and calls them by name.

For those reading with charcoal smoke still clinging to your memories, Jesus does not skip the fire. He walks you to it. He stands beside it. Not to shame, but to restore. He doesn’t erase the moment. He transfigures it. The same place where Peter denied becomes the very place he’s recommissioned. That’s not therapy. That’s raw, ground-shaking resurrection power. It’s impressive.

There’s a lie that restoration means minimising the failure, downplaying the damage, or polishing up a testimony. Sweeping it under the tarmac. No, gospel restoration is honest. Peter didn’t bounce back like a Whac-A-Mole. He broke. And Jesus built him anew. Not as a leader who could never fall again, but one who knows what it means to be caught by mercy.

My subscription list is growing so I may not necessary know who you are, but if you’re carrying failure like it’s the end of your story, remember the smell of fish on the fire. This isn’t the kind of grace that excuses. It’s the kind that transforms. There’s a path from shame to calling, but it walks through the truth. No rewriting. Just redeeming.

And for those privileged friends of mine who lead, care or minister restoration with others, notice the pace. It’s not like me; task-driven, in a rush, save the world in a day. Jesus doesn’t lecture. He feeds. He listens. He cares. He listens. He invites. He waits. We rush too fast to reinstate or reject, but Christ restores through communion before commission. The table comes before the task. And the conversation isn’t strategy. It’s love.

So don’t pretend the charcoal fire never happened. Don’t write it out of your story. It’s part of the gospel now. Grace met you there. Grace cooked breakfast. Grace spoke your name three times and didn’t flinch once. And grace still says, Follow Me.

But I still wonder about that poor fish …