Born Beyond the Dragon's Reach

In September 1939, before a single German bomb had fallen on London, the British government launched Operation Pied Piper — the largest mass evacuation in history. Over three days, nearly 1.5 million children and expectant mothers were moved from the city to prepared homes in the English countryside. When the Blitz finally came in September 1940, Nazi bombers set the sky ablaze night after night, reducing whole neighborhoods to rubble. But in quiet villages like Bampton and Stow-on-the-Wold, babies were being born in safe cottages, nursed and sheltered far from the dragon's fire.

The British planners couldn't stop the Luftwaffe. But they could prepare a place. They could carry the vulnerable beyond the reach of destruction.

John's vision in Revelation paints this same drama on a cosmic canvas. A great dragon crouches before a woman in labor, jaws open, ready to devour her child. But God has already moved. The child is caught up to the throne of the Almighty. The woman is carried to a place prepared for her in the wilderness. The dragon rages — but the Most High had planned the rescue before the attack ever began.

This is the gospel's deepest comfort: the Enemy is never ahead of God. Before the threat arrives, the Almighty has already prepared the place of safety. "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God."