“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.”Acts 16:25 (KJV)
Two men, beaten and locked in an inner prison, did something at midnight that nobody expected.
Nothing had improved. They were still bleeding, still in stocks, still in the innermost cell. The worship came before the earthquake, not after it.
And the detail Luke includes is that the other prisoners heard them. Worship in the dark is rarely private. Someone in the next cell is listening, and it is often the thing that reaches them.
If you are in a midnight hour, you are not required to feel triumphant. You are invited to pray and, if you can, to sing. The change may not come tonight; the presence of God does not wait for morning.
Lord, it is midnight and nothing has changed. I will pray anyway, and I will thank You anyway. Meet me here. Amen.
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Related
For the believer who has prayed for years without visible change, and is quietly wondering whether God has heard.
“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary…”
Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)
When nothing has changed for a long time, it is easy to conclude that God has moved on. Scripture answers that fear with an image no one could invent.
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not…”
Isaiah 49:15-16 (KJV)
The most famous homecoming in Scripture, and the detail most people miss: the father was already running before a word of apology was spoken.
“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his…”
Luke 15:20 (KJV)
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