Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac . I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day . So grab your cup of coffee , sit back , relax and let me help you start your day right .
I'm pretty sure that we all have our own favorite stories from the Bible , and many of the really great stories are very well known . There's Moses parting the Red Sea , there's David and Goliath , there's Noah building the ark , there's Daniel in the lion's den , and there are many more , including the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem .
We have a whole season that we're in the midst of that celebrates that one event the greatest event of them all , was Jesus' death and resurrection . We all know about those stories , but there are many wonderful stories that are woven throughout the rest of Scripture . I've referenced one many times . It's one of my favorites . It's found over in Acts , chapter 16 .
It's about Paul and Silas , who were thrown in prison because they had cast a demon out of a woman . The demon in her had allowed her to tell fortunes and her owners had become extremely wealthy because of it . This woman began to follow Paul and Silas around , saying these men are the servants of the Most High God and have come to tell you how to be saved .
Paul and Silas , they got tired of all this yelling behind them and around them that they cast the demon out of her and that made her owners very upset . The owners then falsely accused Paul and Silas of some really rotten things and they wound up in prison , being locked in the deepest and darkest sections of the prison , and their feet were put in stocks .
But then , at verse 25 of chapter 16 , it says Around midnight , paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening , and suddenly there was a massive earthquake and the prison was shaken to its foundations . All the doors immediately flew open and the chains of every prisoner fell off .
Well , as they read through the rest of it , the jailer thought that the prisoners had all escaped . He was ready to kill himself . Paul called out to him and stopped him from doing that , and the jailer came to them and Paul and Silas were able to lead the jailer and the jailer's family to Christ . It's a powerful story .
It's a beautiful , beautiful story and it's one of my favorites in the New Testament . The verse that makes this one of my favorites is verse 25 , around midnight , paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns . There's something about that time frame and what they were doing and where they were that leaves me in an absolute sense of awe .
Here they were locked up unjustly , having been beaten , their feet locked in stocks . They're in the darkest , stinkiest part of the prison . And then , around midnight , we think of midnight as sort of the change between the old day and the new day . We're leaving that behind us . It's also a time when people think of it being the darkest and the worst .
But here's Paul and Silas in the darkest and the worst , at the time of the night when they should have been sleeping , or many people would have been complaining and grousing and crying out to God in tears and anguish , saying Lord , get me out of this . But instead they were singing praises and praying . I began to wonder how they could do that .
So I wanted to read the verse from 2 Corinthians 12 , where God spoke to Paul and said my grace is sufficient for you . I wanted to see that again , only this time . For the very first time , I read it from the message and I have to tell you I was completely blown away by what it says . Let me read it to you , starting in verse 7 of 2 Corinthians 12 .
This is Paul writing this . He said because of the extravagance of those revelations and so I wouldn't get a big head I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations . Satan's angel did his best to get me down . What he in fact did was push me to my knees . No danger then of walking around high and mighty .
At first I didn't think of it as a gift , and I begged God to remove it . Three times I did that , and then he told me my grace is sufficient for you . My power is made perfect in your weakness . Once I heard that , I was glad to let it happen . I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift .
On the handicap and began appreciating the gift , it was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness , now I take limitations in stride and with good cheer . These limitations that cut me down to size—abuse , accidents , opposition , bad breaks—I just let Christ take over , and so the weaker I get , the stronger I become .
The attitude that Paul and Silas had sitting in the prison is the same attitude that Paul is describing here . He'd learned the lesson well that when trials and problems and limitations come , it's not because we're not strong enough to deal with it that these are happening .
It often is to keep us from getting a big head to begin to believe that we are strong enough and wise enough and smart enough in and of ourselves .
God wants us to rely on Him , he wants us to trust Him and if we truly trust Him , even in the worst and darkest times , we can celebrate the goodness of God and we can praise and thank Him , even when it's pitch black and dark at midnight . I hope you have a great day , my friends .
Keep believing , keep having faith , keep trusting and we'll talk again tomorrow . Thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday , right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac .