Paul and Silas in Prison

Prayer Practice

Cup Prayer – This prayer will help you pour your heart out to God (Ps. 62:8). Begin with your hands folded together like an upside-down cup. Pour out before God all your fears, anxieties, guilt, sin and shame. Tell Him what troubles you. Take time to be specific. When you feel like you’ve poured out your heart, flip your hands over, folding them like an open cup, ready to receive from God. Sit in silence, asking God simply to fill you with His Spirit. If your mind runs back to sin, shame, anxiety or concerns of the day, flip your hands back over and pour it out to the Lord. When you are finished praying, read today’s Scripture and listen as God shares His heart back with you.

DAILY READING

Acts 16:16-40

REFLECTION

God’s Kingdom Work Is Disruptive

 by Dan Kidd

God’s Kingdom work is disruptive. This story is great evidence of that.

We begin with a woman (perhaps a girl) doubly tormented; first having been invaded by an enemy spirt, slavers then exploited her woundedness by profiting from her demonic possession. This unfortunate slave girl was being used by this enemy spirit to badger Paul and his fellow disciples. After “many days,” Paul reaches the end of his patience and commands the spirit to leave her.

Some passages produce more questions than they provide answers. For instance:

How can the enemy profit from telling the truth—the Gospel truth—about who these disciples are and what they are about? Is there a way in which even that kind of truth can be counterproductive to God’s mission?

Also, why did it take “many days” of this annoyance before Paul exorcised this demon from her? And why wasn’t Paul’s compassion for this abused slave the primary motivator for his Kingdom work, rather than his annoyance? What might that say about how God uses us—even the most evangelistic and empowered among us—despite ourselves?

At any rate, she is healed. God’s Kingdom work of setting her free from her demonic captive is done, and as is so often the case, this meant a profound interruption to those benefitting from the shadowy circumstances of evil’s corruption. In this case, the slave girl’s abusers were so enraged that their scheme was dismantled that they drug Paul and Silas before the Roman authorities who tore their clothes from them, beat them, and jailed them.

But God’s Kingdom work is disruptive.

At midnight, the Holy Spirit appeared again to cause some holy mischief: this time in the form of an earthquake so powerful it flung open every door in the jail. Paul and Silas, who had spent their night thus far in a worship set, were free to go—along with the rest of the prisoners.

The story could have ended here, but God was not done with his disruptions just yet. The Spirit saw a jailor who believed he had just lost his prisoners—and they’d taken with them every shred of dignity he had. He’d failed the singular purpose of his life, and his life was over. The Spirit saw otherwise. Paul and Silas shouted out to the jailor, imploring him not to end his life. Looking at them, the jailor realized that they had something to offer him that could save him. That morning, he and his family were saved into a new life; the waters of baptism setting them on a new course.

How open am I to the disruptiveness of God’s Kingdom work? Do I recognize where the Holy Spirit might want to turn the present order upside down? Am I available to be a conduit for God’s disruptive work, and, if I’m honest with myself, would I let the Holy Spirit use me for God’s interruptive purposes?  Lord, let it be.