Singing Still

Paul and Silas had been stripped publicly and beaten with whips before being thrown into prison and shackled without trial and witthout just cause.  What lie before them the next day, God only knew.  We might expect them to rail against the injustice or plead for mercy but what they did made no earthly sense: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25).

They sang praises to God, in the middle of a dungeon, chained like animals, they were still singing to God - not weeping, not lamenting but singing.  Songs like that well up because of the joy in our hearts, but what joy could they have been feeling?  It is the same joy this apostle Paul called us to insist on in Phil 4:4, "Rejoice always and again I will say, rejoice!"  But how?

He went on to say in Phil 4:12, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation."  That secret?  Look in the very next verse, "I can do all things through him who gives me strength."  Paul could rejoice because of the inner peace he gained from knowing Christ as Lord, the peace "which transcends all understanding" (Phil 4:7).

I can't say I've always had it.  I must say that I am struggling with it right now.  But I know where it is found and from whom it comes.  And I know that there is no other source for that peace, which allows us to always rejoice and keep singing still.  Jus' Sayn.