“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them, and 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 unfastened.” Acts 16:25-26
Many of us are in different spiritual prisons. Sometimes more than one at a time! However, that is where I pray this blog comes into play. When I write I usually write from or about a prison I’ve been in whether Fear, or Doubt, Uncertainty, Condemnation, Complacency, Confusion, you name it! And I pray that my prayers and “songs” shake the foundations of your prisons!
If we look at this scripture we find what happens when foundations are shaken; doors open and bonds are unfastened! That’s the power of the Word of God!
Earlier in Acts 16 we find Paul, Silas and Timothy facing closed door (verse 6: Asia) after closed door (verse 7: Bithynia). I can only imagine how frustrated they were at this. Here the Spirit of God has empowered them with boldness and a passion to spread the gospel but He keeps telling them, “not here”.
I’ve been in that hallway of locked doors with God before and it’s frustrating and discouraging as you knock on door after door and they simply remain closed to you. So you walk farther down the hall and knock on more doors and they stay closed causing more feelings of rejection and disappointment and doubt of your calling. But these doors are not a rejection of you nor are they a confirmation of your doubts; they’re arrows pointing you in the direction God wants you to go. They’re like those signs in the bank when a teller window is closed, “next teller please”.
God,
Please infuse us with the patience of Your Spirit as we continue down our hall of closed doors in search of the door of opportunity that was made just for us. Heal our knuckles that have been bruised and bloodied from knocking. There are so many hurts that accompany closed doors; we give those hurts to You our great and mighty healer. Lord, we give You our prison-stays. And we will praise Your name in every circumstance that shakes us because we know that we have been given an unshakable kingdom (Hebrews 12:18-29) where Christ is our unbreakable foundation. We pray that we may be deeply rooted and grounded in Your love for us and that we may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be FILLED with ALL the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Tamar Knochel 