“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and 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, everyone's bonds were unfastened”.
One of the most valuable lessons we can learn in the Kingdom, is to praise before we see the breakthrough we’re looking for.
What I love about this passage of scripture in Acts 16, is that even though Paul and Silas are arrested and in prison, there seems to be a confidence in who they know God to be. He is the same God whom they have encountered, and who they have seen heal and set people free. So as they sit in there prison cell, chains around their ankles, they begin to pray and sing hymns to God. They’re not thankful and singing praise because they are free, they are singing praise because they are confident in who God is, and that He has a plan!
The incredible part of this story isn’t just that their breakthrough came, but when Paul and Silas sang their praises, breakthrough came to the whole prison!! It says when the earthquake shook, ALL the doors were open, and EVERYONE’S bonds were set free!!
When we worship and praise through our hard situations and dark seasons of life, the breakthrough’s that we see become an open door for the people around us to see breakthrough’s in their own lives! And the confidence we gain as we see God move in our lives turns into authority to proclaim and see Him do it again in the lives of others.
In the next chapter as Paul and Silas go to the next city, there is a group of men that again try to arrest them, and as they condemn them they say “these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also..” (Acts 17:6). It’s so amazing that as we see breakthrough in our own lives, the reputation and testimony of God makes way into places we never thought imaginable.
I pray that as you read this chapter and the story of Paul and Silas, that you would be encouraged to praise in the middle of whatever season you’re in, and whatever you’re going through. Praise really is a doorway to our breakthrough, both for us and for the people around us and in our lives.
