stanpavkovich

I’m like everybody else I have crappy days…days where it seems like it would have been to my advantage to stay in bed rather then get up.

But as I read about Paul and Silas in Acts 16, I realize I have nothing to whine about.

Here is the story in a nutshell…Paul casts a demon out of a fortune-teller…. Her master doesn’t like it because she loses the ability to predict the future… so he has Paul and Silas arrested.

Acts 16:22 says, The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Now that is a crappy day! I have not had anything that has even come close to that.

If I was Paul or Silas I would be crying, asking for my mommy…and you had better not ask anything of me because I wouldn’t have anything to offer, I’d be drained and filled with self-pity.

Their backs are bleeding from their beating… I’ve never had a mob form against me… but I’m guessing that’s a little un-nerving. And to top it off they are thrown in the maximum-security cell in chains.

It just doesn’t get much worse than that…. And that’s why this next verse is so unbelievable. Acts 16:25 says, about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

Paul and Silas could have complained about their circumstances….God, we cast out a demon and this is what we get? We’re on a missionary journey and we get beaten and thrown in jail? They could have complained…But they made a choice to worship God in spite of their external circumstances.

The solution to a crappy day – is worship.

It changes your perspective from the temporary to the eternal…to the fact that I have eternity with God to look forward to, in a place where there is no mourning or sorrow or pain.

Nothing is more difficult than praising God when everything seems to be going wrong…. But one of the purest forms of worship is praising God even when you don’t feel like it. It shows God that your worship isn’t based on circumstances…. Worship is based on your love for God and His character.

Worship is reframing our circumstances.

John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Be Blessed,
Stan