If you watch baseball, you may have seen a pitcher throw a split finger fast ball. The ball comes in at waist level but, just when the batter swings, the ball curves toward the ground. The batter connects with nothing but air as the ball is not where the batter anticipated. Commentators say that the “bottom dropped out of the pitch.”
Life has a way of throwing us curve balls. We start off well and then something happens. The bottom falls out. What we expected to happen takes a turn downward. The excitement disappears. We feel like the bottom drops out, disappointed and disillusioned.
The bottom fell out of life for the Apostle Paul. Paul is in the city of Philippi in the province of Macedonia. He and his companions Silas, Timothy and Luke are there because of a vision from God. In his vision, Paul saw a man from Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Acts 15:10 reads: “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel.”
The first days in Philippi were positive, just what you would expect when you respond to a message from God to help others. But the positive quickly turned ugly. A slave girl who had a spirit which enabled her to predict the future followed Paul and his companions. Everywhere they went, she shouted in the background “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”
Paul did not appreciate having his mission announced by a person who’s power was foreign to the Spirit of Jesus. After several days Paul had had enough. He turned to the slave girl and said “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” We read that instantly the spirit left her.
Now Paul was in trouble. This girl was a slave. She belonged to people who used her ability to predict the future to their own advantage. She was a money maker and Paul had just destroyed their source of revenue. They were not impressed. They did not jump up and down and say, “Hallelujah! She is free at last.”
Unfortunately, the girl was not a person in their eyes. She was a piece of property, an object to possess, a source of income. We read: “When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.”
These guys were masterful manipulators. Listen to how they reported the incident. "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practise."
A crowd, attracted by the commotion, added their screams of condemnation. The magistrates acted impulsively. Acts 16:22: “The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.”
Don’t slide over these words quickly. Put yourself in the sandals of Paul and Silas. Think of yourself being publically stripped before a hostile crowd. What would you be feeling as you stand exposed in front of the taunting hostile crowd? Would you feel anger? Shame? Rage? Self pity? A sense of outrage and betrayal? Fear?
Next comes the beating with whips designed to inflict pain. Over and over the whips descend on your back. The pain is intense and wipes everything else out of your consciousness. Finally the beating stops—but the pain continues. The soldier march you to the prison and the jailer is warned, “Guard these trouble makers carefully!” Because of these instructions the guard places you feet in stocks. The pain and discomfort intensify. Look at the change of status Paul and Silas experience. They are now prisoners, trouble makers whom the jailer puts in the hole.
Do you think you might have some questions? At that point you may feel as if the bottom has fallen out of your life. You ask yourself, “What is going to happen? Why did we come to this place? If only... if only...” Have you ever been in that state of mind?
The bottom had fallen out for Paul and Silas. But Paul and Silas had a secret the enabled them not only to survive but to thrive.
What is the secret? Paul and Silas could not change their circumstances. They could not change the lies that the owners of the slave girl told against them. They could not change the magistrate’s lack of wisdom in dealing with them. They could not change Paul’s decision to cast the evil spirit out of the slave girl. What they could do was choose how they would response.
A typical response might go like this: “This is so unfair. All I was trying to do was to follow God and be a good Christian and look at what happens to me.” These thoughts and words then begin to control our feelings. We feel unhappiness, self pity and anger. Some of it may be directed toward ourselves, making us determine that “this is the last time I pay attention to visions and dreams” or “I will never do this again! I am not going to speak up for Christ anymore if this is what is going to happen to me.”
Our negative feelings may also be directed toward those who are disturbing our peace. We rail. “What liars those owners were. The magistrates were so unprofessional. I can’t believe they’re in a position of responsibility like that. They were totally wrong.”
Finally we come to God. “God, what is wrong with you? Your word says, “Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart (Psalm 97:10-11).” You have not guarded our lives. You let those slave owners win. You let us be judged unwisely by an incompetent magistrate. For an all powerful, all knowing God who is in charge of every situation, you sure have allowed a lot of evil to come into my life. I thought I could trust you.”
Have you ever responded that way to negative circumstances in your life? You may be in a troubling situation right now. You feel like the bottom has dropped out. You don’t like what is happening. You are responding, of course. We all do. Is it a response mixed with self-pity, unhappiness and anger?
I have out lined a typical response – a response I know all about! You can fill in some more blanks as to what a typical response to negative circumstances looks like in your life. But it is the untypical response we want to learn about. This is the response we can call ‘The Secret’. It is the response we can describe as part of the secret of knowing God’s blessing in our lives. It is the response that allows us to stay connected to the amazing flow of God’s Spirit of love in our lives.
Are you ready for the secret? Read Acts 16:25. “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”
At midnight Paul and Silas were sing hymns of praise to God! They were not wallowing in self-pity. They were not complaining about the horrible people in their life who had caused them so much hardship. They were singing hymns of praise to God. Their status and position may have degraded to trouble makers but they knew they were still the children of God and, whatever the situation, they were loved by him.
What does it take to pray and sing hymns when life has collapsed around you? What does it take to sing praises when you have all kinds of reasons to complain and feel sorry for yourself?
The answer is found in three key words: faith, hope and love. Over and over again you find these words linked together in the writings of the Apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians 13 is one of those places. Faith, hope and love are linked to our failure to understand fully in this life. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
When life seems complex and things are not adding up the way you would like, when you are feeling angry and frustrated, when your plans are not working out, when the bottom has dropped out, remember faith, hope and love.
Faith (or trust) enables us to find rest in God. We say, “I don’t understand. I am seeing through a glass darkly, but, Lord, I trust you. I believe in you. I will even sing your praises in this desperate situation. I know you hold me in your hand. I know that you are able to bring good out of evil. I thank you for your great power, for your trustworthiness. Lord, I am your servant in every situation.”
Faith is reinforced by hope. As followers of Jesus Christ we have the hope of eternal life. We know Christ is returning again. All evil will be defeated. No one or thing will be able to stand in his way. Paul’s words at a difficult time remind us “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinth. 4:17-18).”
Paul’s hope enabled him to endure the hardships of the present because he saw the future. He knew that what lie ahead was so splendid, so wonderful, it diminished present hardships. Hope gives us a totally new perspective on every present difficulty we face.
Lastly, there is love. The source of love is God. He pours his love into our hearts through his Spirit so that we can love him and love others the way he loved us. What is God’s love like? The Apostle John tells us, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 5:10-11).”
God’s love is a love that loved us even thought we refused to love him. His love is a love that was willing to sacrifice his Son so that through Jesus we could know forgiveness. John says, “This is how you were loved, so love one another the same way.” How do we sacrificially love one another?
1 Corinthians 13 is a good place to start. Review Paul’s definition of love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)” These are all choices which God will empower us to make. We must choose to be kind or patient or not keep a record of wrong – even when we want to do otherwise.
Faith, hope and love sustained Paul and Silas when they sat bruised and bloodied in stocks. Faith, hope and love enabled them to see beyond the immediate and to see God. Faith, hope and love transformed an opportunity for self-pity, anger, and unhappiness into songs of praise.
What resulted out of Paul’s expression of faith hope and love?
First, others listened. What do you think the prisoners were thinking when they heard Paul and Silas singing? “What is with these guys? How do you sing after you have been publically humiliated, beaten and thrown in stocks? They must be crazy!” Our friends understand us when we feel sorry for ourselves when bad and underserved things happen in our life. It makes perfect sense to them. But when faith hope and love kick in, that can be a little confusing. That is different. They listen carefully to see if they can discover our secret.
The second thing that resulted was that God moved into the situation in a powerful way. He did for Paul and Silas what they could never have done by feeling sorry for themselves. An earthquake rocked the joint. As a result of all that transpired, the jailer and his family became believers. God used the evil owners of the slave girl, the unwise and impulsive magistrates and an earthquake to bring a jailer and his family into a right relationship with him through the Lord.
Do you want to be powerfully used by God? Part of the secret is how you choose to respond to the difficult situations and difficult people in your life. Faith, hope and love, empowered by the Holy Spirit, free God to work through you in powerful ways to bring his grace into the lives of people around you. Anyone can choose negative responses to negative situations. God wants to empower us to trust him enough to praise him in the most difficult of situations.