Acts 16:16-34
Miraculous Joy

It happened, as we were going to prayer, that a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling. Following Paul and us, she cried out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!" She was doing this for many days.

But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" It came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, "These men, being Jews, are agitating our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans."

The multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore their clothes off of them, and commanded them to be beaten with rods. When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and secured their feet in the stocks.

But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were loosened. The jailer, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, "Don't harm yourself, for we are all here!"

He called for lights and sprang in, and, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house.

He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household. He brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his household, having believed in God.

World English Bible

It's stories like this one that shake the way I think about my life. All of us have "bad days," and most of us, particularly me, allow these bad days to make us angry, frustrated, or sad. Because of my usual responses, my "bad days" frequently interrupt my dialog with God, since I begin focusing on my problems instead of focusing on God's Way.

Not so with Paul and Silas. After doing a good deed in freeing the girl from the spirit that occupied her, they were accosted by an angry crowd, wrongly accused before the Philippian judges, and unlawfully beaten and jailed. I have never had as strong a justification for a foul mood as Paul and Silas had on the evening described in this scripture passage.

And yet, through the pain of the stocks and the beatings, through the horrid unpleasantness of the inner cells of a local jail, through the injustice that had been hurled at them, through the circumstances that made it impossible to continue their work with that local church, they sang.

It seems to me there were four miracles that happened that night. The jail keeper's life was changed, as were the lives of his family members. The earthquake opened the jail and freed all the shackles. Even with jail doors open and chains broken, none of the inmates attempted to escape. But the miracle that started it all was a joyous spirit in Paul and Silas that nothing in their bad day could disrupt, spilling out of them in an expression of worship so strong that it captivated all the other prisoners.

I want that kind of joy in my life, and I want it with me always. God wants me to have that kind of joy, and God wants to pour it into me with such extravagant abandon that I overflow with it! So why don't I have it? Because I cut off the joy. I lose sight of what is divine and become distracted by what is earthly. I fall over when frustrations and troubles push me instead of standing firm in my faith.

I can't have that kind of joy on my own strength. I am not disciplined enough, I am not strong-willed enough, and I am not pure enough. But God is making me so I can receive more joy, and God will never give up on me.