I had a great conversation with some of my friends through text today. They are always good for a laugh, but they are always there through the tough times as well. We were discussing the state of things and Jonathan Crane pointed out Paul and Silas. They had been beaten and thrown into jail for sharing their faith. They weren’t prepared for their lives to be thrown upside down (sound familiar given our current world status?). The future looked bleak…but they worshipped God regardless.
Here’s the scripture:
“But about midnight when Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; suddenly there was a great earthquake, so [powerful] that the very foundations of the prison were shaken and at once all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer, shaken out of sleep, saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
Then the jailer called for torches and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out [of the inner prison], he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?””
Acts 16:25-27, 29-30 AMP
We can take today as a day of worship or we can take it as a day of fear. In the midst of anxiety, fear, and economic cloudiness…we can chose to worship God. As we work remotely, stand in long lines for paper towels, homeschool our kids, and staying in doors…we can still praise God. It’s a decision that we all need to make. When the praise goes up, the fear goes down. Then we get to see God move even louder, if we chose to do so! It’s tough though when life is not fair, but God never said it would be easy!
Geoff Moore & Steven Curtis captured this in their song from the 90’s: “Listen To our Hearts”. These words came into my mind when I read how they were singing praise from the jail. God knows all of our hopes and fears, and He is listening to our hearts!
Some of the words are below but check out the old school video for yourself here:
How do you explain, how do you describe
A love that goes from the east to west
And runs as deep as it is wide
You know all our hopes
Lord, you know all our fears
And words cannot express the love we feel
But we long for You to hear
So listen to our hearts
Here our spirit sing
A song of praise that flows
From those you have redeemed
We will use the words we know
To tell you what an awesome God You are
But words are not enough
To tell you of our love
So listen to our hearts
Let’s praise God together today. Let’s get our peace back and cause a revival in the midst of it!
