Worship

“Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.”

Acts 16:25

We sing songs in our worship services quite often about how worship can change a situation, and we proclaim and believe that worship can set us free. This story in Acts is a perfect example of that. Paul and Silas had been severely flogged. They were stripped, beaten, and publicly humiliated, then thrown into a dark and cold prison cell. Their feet were then fastened in stocks and thus began a very uncertain future for these two men.

After all of this though, their immediate reaction is to sing praise. I’m sure most of us have never experienced anything remotely close to what they endured, but we have all had our fair share of turmoil and despair. We have all been at one time in our lives enslaved to sin and defeated by our situations and circumstances. What is our first reaction though to trouble?

When they sang, their shackles were not only loosed but every other prisoner in that cell block was delivered as well. People are always listening to the words we choose to speak. Will they hear praise for our God, or negativity and complaining? Will our reaction to devastation trigger a hunger for God in their lives, or will it cause them to question Him?

Because of grace, we can sing in even the most difficult of trials. If we daily choose to make praise and worship our priority, our situations will change, and those around us will take notice.