“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
ACTS 16:16-40
22The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. 23After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.(16:22-25)JOURNAL
David understands that true joy only comes from relationship with God. Paul and Silas are wrongly accused and then "beaten severely"...then they are praying and singing hymns to God from the center of a prison. Here is the evidence of a life changed.
Falsely accused and then severely beaten and then in chains in a prison and they are singing?? Ok...so to really dig into this for a minute. I rarely rejoice and sing when things are going great and here they are in a true hell on earth and they are filled with joy. I look around at my life and realize that I am a whiney baby a lot of the time. I don't verbalize it but my inner thoughts often confirm that I don't acknowledge and rejoice in God's love. I too often, judge my circumstances against my desires and when that doesn't match...I pout and stew in disappointment.
How can Paul live this way? How can he find the power and courage to day after day encounter persecution, and still willingly persist in ways that only bring more suffering? The only way this happens is that the spirit of God is within him...this spirit gives him courage, power and joy in the midst of hell on earth. This proves that the root of joy is God. To seek it in anything else, is a delusional fantasy. True, life-changing joy is the love of God, living and growing in the life of man.
I pray Father that this life and joy continue to bloom in my heart. I pray that the opportunities and sufferings in this life only become opportunities to share your power and love with others. I pray that I always am encouraged by your presence, not giving in to thoughts of despair or discouragement, but rather pushing through them in power and love.
Falsely accused and then severely beaten and then in chains in a prison and they are singing?? Ok...so to really dig into this for a minute. I rarely rejoice and sing when things are going great and here they are in a true hell on earth and they are filled with joy. I look around at my life and realize that I am a whiney baby a lot of the time. I don't verbalize it but my inner thoughts often confirm that I don't acknowledge and rejoice in God's love. I too often, judge my circumstances against my desires and when that doesn't match...I pout and stew in disappointment.
How can Paul live this way? How can he find the power and courage to day after day encounter persecution, and still willingly persist in ways that only bring more suffering? The only way this happens is that the spirit of God is within him...this spirit gives him courage, power and joy in the midst of hell on earth. This proves that the root of joy is God. To seek it in anything else, is a delusional fantasy. True, life-changing joy is the love of God, living and growing in the life of man.
I pray Father that this life and joy continue to bloom in my heart. I pray that the opportunities and sufferings in this life only become opportunities to share your power and love with others. I pray that I always am encouraged by your presence, not giving in to thoughts of despair or discouragement, but rather pushing through them in power and love.
14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom every familya in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
EPHESIANS 3:14-21
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