Our story

The Key Called Promise

Ahadi is Swahili for promise.

In 1678 John Bunyan published The Pilgrim’s Progress, the story of a man named Christian travelling from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. Partway there he is joined by a friend called Hopeful.

The road grows rough, and a soft meadow beside it looks easier. They climb the stile into By-path Meadow. Night falls, a storm breaks, and they cannot find the way back. Worn out, they fall asleep on the grounds of Doubting Castle.

Its owner, Giant Despair, finds them in the morning, drives them to his castle and locks them in a dark dungeon. From Wednesday morning until Saturday night they are kept there without bread, water or light. Christian sinks low. Hopeful stays beside him, reminding him how far they have already been brought.

Christian and Hopeful in the dungeon. Engraving by the Dalziel Brothers from a nineteenth-century edition. Public domain.

On Saturday, about midnight, they begin to pray, and they keep praying until it is almost day. Then Christian speaks up, half amazed:

“What a fool am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

He takes out the key and tries the dungeon door. The bolt gives way and the door flies open. The door into the castle yard opens too. The great iron gate is harder, and its lock turns stiffly, but the key opens that as well.

The gate creaks and the giant wakes, but they are away, back on the King’s highway and out of his reach. Before going on they set up a pillar at the stile, to warn the pilgrims who come after them.

Why we memorize

Christian was never without the key. He had carried it the whole time. He had only forgotten it.

A promise you have memorized is like that: already with you when the room is dark, the Bible is out of reach, and no one else is awake. Ahadi exists to help you keep God’s promises close, ready to remember when you need them.

Christian did not escape alone. Hopeful stayed with him, and they prayed together. If you are in a dark place, tell someone you trust — a friend, a pastor, a doctor — as well as holding on to God’s promises.

John Bunyan

John Bunyan (1628–1688) was a tinker, a mender of pots, from Elstow near Bedford in England. After his conversion he became a preacher, and in 1660 he was arrested for preaching without a licence.

He spent twelve years in Bedford jail rather than promise to stop. There he made shoelaces to support his family, and he wrote. He told the story of his own long fight with doubt in Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and The Pilgrim’s Progress has never been out of print.

Read his biography

The Key Called Promise

Why we memorize

John Bunyan

Further reading