Prisoners of Hope: Out of the Waterless Pit and Back to the Stronghold

I have learned that some of the darkest places in life are not always the loudest. Some prisons do not clang with iron bars, and some pits do not announce themselves with visible ruin. Some of the deepest confinements are silent, inward, hidden beneath routine, hidden beneath ministry, hidden beneath a composed face, hidden beneath the language of faith. A man can still pray and yet feel dry. He can still preach and yet feel pressed. He can still smile and yet know, somewhere deep within, that a part of him has been sitting in a waterless pit.

That is why the word of the Lord in Zechariah 9:11–12 strikes me with such force:

“As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee.”

I do not read that as a cold theological statement. I read it as a divine interruption. I read it as God stepping into a place of confinement and saying, “I know where you have been. I know what has held you. I know the dryness you have endured. But I am not leaving you there. By the blood of the covenant, I am bringing you out.”

What a word that is. Not by your own strength. Not by your own striving. Not by your own perfection. Not because you finally found the right method, the right connection, the right opportunity, or the right timing. God says, by the blood of thy covenant. In other words, He roots deliverance in covenant before He ever mentions condition. He anchors freedom in blood before He ever speaks to the pit. And in that, I hear the thunder of the gospel. I hear the whisper and the roar of Christ. I hear the language of Calvary reaching across generations, across nations, across weakness, across failure, across delay, and saying, “My covenant is still speaking over you.”

I have walked long enough with God to know that the enemy will always try to make the pit look final. He wants the place of pressure to look permanent. He wants the season of dryness to look prophetic. He wants the confinement to feel like identity. He wants people to say, “This is just how it is now. This is just who I am. This is just the way life has turned.” But the devil is a liar, and the pit is not your prophecy. The drought is not your destiny. The delay is not your definition. The place where you lost your song is not the place where God intends to bury your future.

A waterless pit is a terrible place because it is the picture of barrenness without relief. It is confinement without comfort. It is pain without obvious resource. It is the kind of place where you cannot sustain yourself and cannot rescue yourself. It is the place where your own strength runs out and your own inner reserves fail. And if we are honest, many of us have known seasons like that. Some have been in emotional pits, trying to keep moving while something inward has gone dry. Some have been in spiritual pits, knowing truth in the mind but feeling a strange distance in the heart. Some have been in relational pits, wounded by what they never expected from people they once trusted. Some have been in financial pits, ministry pits, family pits, hidden pits of disappointment, hidden pits of battle, hidden pits of weariness where they wondered, “Lord, how long?”

And yet this is the wonder of God’s heart: He does not merely observe the pit. He does not stand at a distance and offer commentary. He says, I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit. He does not negotiate with the prison. He does not ask permission from the pit. He does not consult the dryness. He issues release.

That phrase grips me—sent forth. It is active. It is forceful. It carries the authority of God. It means that when heaven moves, confinement loses its legal hold. When covenant speaks, the prison can no longer keep what the blood has claimed. When God says come out, every false finality is broken. Every spirit that tried to domesticate your future must bow before the authority of Christ.

I believe many in the Body of Christ have lived too long beneath what Jesus already overcame. Not because the victory is absent, but because warfare often targets perception before it targets possession. If the enemy can convince you that your pit is normal, he does not need to chain you very tightly. If he can persuade you that dryness is maturity, that hopelessness is realism, that confinement is humility, that silence is surrender, he can keep you surrounded by limits while calling it wisdom. But I feel the urgency of God in this hour to break agreement with whatever has held His people beneath their covenant.

The blood of Jesus did not merely forgive me; it claimed me. It did not merely cleanse my past; it spoke over my future. It did not merely save me from hell; it secured my belonging in God. The blood of the covenant tells me that I do not have to interpret my life merely by my battles. I can interpret my battles by the covenant. I can interpret my weakness by the cross. I can interpret delay by promise. I can interpret pressure by the One who already triumphed.

And then the word becomes even more astonishing, because after God speaks of the prisoners being brought out, He calls them something extraordinary: prisoners of hope.

What a phrase. Not prisoners of fear. Not prisoners of shame. Not prisoners of memory. Not prisoners of what was done to them. Not prisoners of what they did wrong. Not prisoners of disappointment, regret, grief, or despair. Prisoners of hope.

I love that because it reveals the kind of captivity God desires for His people. If I must be bound, let me be bound to hope. If something must seize my imagination, let it be the promise of God. If something must govern the way I see tomorrow, let it be the faithfulness of the Lord. Hope is not naïve optimism. Hope is not pretending the pit never existed. Hope is not denial. Hope is the holy refusal to let the pit prophesy your future. Hope is when a man has wept, battled, waited, staggered, and still says, “Yet God. Yet promise. Yet covenant. Yet restoration. Yet the Lord will arise.”

I have found that hell fears hope because hope refuses surrender. Hope may tremble, but it does not fully bow. Hope may be wounded, but it does not die easily. Hope may sit in ashes, but it keeps listening for the footstep of God. Hope is one of the most violent acts of spiritual resistance available to the believer. To remain hopeful when circumstances have argued against you is itself a declaration that another kingdom is governing your expectation.

The enemy understands despair because despair paralyzes movement. But hope makes prisoners start looking toward the door. Hope makes dry bones listen for breath. Hope makes weary saints lift their heads. Hope makes intercessors pray again. Hope makes broken families believe again. Hope makes wounded ministers preach again. Hope makes tired hearts whisper, “Maybe this is not over. Maybe God is not finished. Maybe the covenant still speaks.”

And then the Lord says something else: Turn you to the strong hold.

That tells me deliverance is not only about coming out; it is also about coming back. God does not merely bring people out of pits. He calls them back into refuge. He calls them back into Himself. He calls them back into the place of safety, alignment, authority, communion, and trust. Some people want out of the pit, but they do not want the stronghold. They want relief without surrender. They want rescue without return. They want freedom from pain, but not the yielding of the heart. Yet divine deliverance is not complete until the soul turns again toward the Lord as its fortress.

The stronghold of the righteous is not human confidence. It is not self-reinvention. It is not cleverness, image, or control. The stronghold is the presence of God. The stronghold is the faithfulness of God. The stronghold is the name of the Lord into which the righteous run and are safe. The stronghold is Christ Himself—my refuge, my defense, my high tower, my hiding place, my place of stability when everything else shakes.

I have discovered that many believers know how to survive the pit but do not know how to return to the stronghold. They come out, but still live inwardly exposed. They come out, but still think as though abandonment has the final word. They come out, but continue to draw identity from pain rather than presence. Yet God is saying in this word, “Come back to where your safety truly is. Come back to where your mind is guarded. Come back to where your spirit can breathe. Come back to where your future is not interpreted by yesterday’s confinement.”

Return to the stronghold. Return in prayer. Return in trust. Return in worship. Return in obedience. Return in repentance. Return in stillness. Return in surrender. Return in the confidence that God has not changed because the season became severe.

And then comes the phrase that burns in my spirit: Even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee.

Even today.

That means the Lord is not merely speaking about a distant horizon. He is announcing His heart in the now. Before circumstances fully turn, He declares restoration. Before the evidence appears, He speaks the outcome. Before the process is completed, He releases the verdict of heaven. I love that because God often speaks restoration before we can yet measure it. He plants promise in the soil before the harvest appears above ground. He prophesies into barrenness. He announces abundance to people still shaking dust from the pit.

And He says, double.

Not mere survival. Not barely enough. Not simply, “I will get you back to neutral.” Double. I understand that this must not be preached as cheap triumphalism. Not every promise of God is measured by material increase alone. But there is unquestionably in this text the language of abundant restoration. It is the heart of God to restore in a way that reveals that the pit did not have the last word. It is the heart of God to restore joy where sorrow tried to build a throne, to restore strength where battle tried to drain identity, to restore song where silence tried to settle, to restore fruit where dryness tried to become normal.

Double is not just about quantity. It is about the testimony of God’s superiority over what opposed you. It is God saying, “What hell meant to diminish, I will answer with abundance. What the enemy intended to confine, I will answer with expansion. What tried to make you less, I will use to reveal more of My faithfulness.”

I believe there are seasons when God allows His people to feel the ache of the pit, not because He delights in their pain, but because He intends the eventual deliverance to reveal something of His covenant in a deeper way than comfort ever could. The pit teaches us what our strength cannot do. The blood teaches us what His mercy has already done. The stronghold teaches us where safety has always been. Hope teaches us how to live between prophecy and manifestation. And double teaches us that God’s answer is greater than the wound.

So I write this today for those who have felt dry, trapped, reduced, delayed, hidden, weary, or inwardly confined. I write this for those who know what it is to keep moving while something in them has been crying out for rain. I write this for those who have stood in a place where life felt narrow and breath felt costly. I write this for those who have known the pressure of battle and wondered whether the confinement had become permanent.

Hear the word of the Lord: the blood still speaks. The covenant still stands. The pit is not final. You are coming out. And not only are you coming out, you are being called back to the stronghold. Not only are you being called back to the stronghold, you are being renamed in the spirit—a prisoner of hope. And not only are you a prisoner of hope, but you stand under the declaration of God Himself: Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.

I do not say that lightly. I say it as a man who has seen enough of God to know that He can break a season in a moment. He can restore prayer in a heart that has been numb. He can restore purity in a life that has been compromised. He can restore courage in a soul that has been battered. He can restore clarity where there has been confusion. He can restore holy fire where there has been fatigue. He can restore tenderness where there has been injury. He can restore vision where disappointment clouded the eyes. He can restore identity where warfare tried to rewrite the script.

This is not the hour to build your home in the pit. This is not the hour to decorate your dryness. This is not the hour to normalize confinement. This is the hour to hear covenant. This is the hour to come out. This is the hour to turn to the stronghold. This is the hour to let hope seize you again. This is the hour to agree with heaven’s declaration over your life.

Let the blood speak louder than your history. Let the stronghold become more real to you than the pressure around you. Let hope become your captivity. Let promise become your atmosphere. Let the Lord Himself retrain your expectation until your spirit begins to say, “I will not die in a waterless pit. I will not make peace with barrenness. I will not surrender my future to the memory of confinement. The Lord is my stronghold, and because of the blood of the covenant, I am coming out.”

And more than that—I am coming through with a testimony.

Because when God brings a man out of the pit, He does not merely change his location. He changes his language. The one who once whispered in weakness now declares in faith. The one who once questioned in confusion now speaks with conviction. The one who once felt buried becomes a witness that covenant is stronger than captivity.

So let every waterless pit hear this. Let every confining spirit hear this. Let every whisper of hopelessness hear this. Let every old season hear this. I belong to the covenant. I am turning to the stronghold. I am no longer a prisoner of despair. I am a prisoner of hope. And the God who speaks over me even today is the God who restores double.

Peter Nash

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Declarations

1. I declare that by the blood of the covenant, every illegal confinement over my life is broken in Jesus’ name.

2. I declare that I am coming out of every waterless pit of dryness, delay, weariness, and limitation.

3. I declare that the pit will not define me, and the season of confinement will not become my identity.

4. I declare that the blood of Jesus speaks louder than my past, my pain, my failure, and my battle.

5. I declare that I am turning again to the Lord my stronghold, my refuge, and my place of safety.

6. I declare that I will not be a prisoner of fear, despair, shame, or disappointment; I am a prisoner of hope.

7. I declare that hope is rising in me again, and holy expectation is taking hold of my spirit.

8. I declare that every place in me that has gone dry will be visited by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

9. I declare that what the enemy meant for confinement, God will turn into testimony.

10. I declare that God is restoring vision, courage, strength, clarity, and spiritual fire in my life.

11. I declare that even today the Lord is speaking over me, and His word will not return void.

12. I declare that I will not merely survive this season; I will see the goodness and faithfulness of God in it.

13. I declare double restoration over the areas where battle, loss, and delay have tried to prevail.

14. I declare that my future is not buried in the pit; my future is secured in the covenant of God.

15. I declare that I am coming forth with renewed authority, renewed faith, renewed joy, and renewed purpose in Jesus Christ.