speaker 0:   0:00
good morning, and welcome to starting right with Danny Mac. I'm gonna be here five times a week to help you get a great five minutes. Start to your day. I'm gonna give you some encouragement in some hole from God's word. Because I really want you to know that you matter that you are important. You have a purpose. So I invited to subscribe to this podcast and join me here money to Friday to help your day by starting right with Danny. Yesterday we were talking about how the pressure of the situations that we are living in an bring about great opportunities for us to share. But the truth of who God is to us by how we handle this differently than the people around us. One of the ways that we can handle it very differently is by showing joy in the middle of this chaos. And I know it's hard to show joy in it. But we have an example for us from Scripture to help us to know that it can be done. Paul and Silas were out in a missionary trip and they came to this town where this young woman was prophesized under the power of a demon. Paul and Silas set her free and cast the demon out of her. But the owners of the woman were now upset. We'll pick up the story in Verse 22 of Capture 16. A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn't escape, so the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamp their feet in stocks. Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. And suddenly there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains flew off of every prisoner. So how were Paul and Silas able to do this in the middle of these absolutely horrible circumstances? Victor Frankel, who wrote a book Man Search for Meeting, put it this way. He states of one has a y toe live. He could endure almost anyhow. Paul had a wider live. He was on a mission for Christ, The howl of his existence was secondary. But why was primary and following that inner leadership of the Holy Spirit? The outward circumstances hardly seemed to matter. Paul and Silas chose to be on mission and exemplified the choice of inward piece. And why, When we understand or why we understand why God has put us here, we understand why we're doing what we're doing right now. We can know the peace of God. Early in the week, we talked about stirring up those dreams again, those goals and dreams that God had planted inside of us. That is part of our why when we know our why we can go through the circumstances of this life and the situations around us, and we can take the hit when it comes at us. But then we can rise up against strong to do what God's called us to be. John Claypool tells this story about the Christian life, he says. It's like the story of a peasant who lived in a village at the foot of a big mountain range and in full view of the village. On the side of the mountain was this monastery. Every once in a while, the monks would come down from the monastery into the village to to get a few things that they needed. In one day, one of the monks came down, and the Villager ran up to this monk and said to him, Father, surely years is the best of all lives, living so close to God upon the clouds. Tell me, what do you do up there? After thinking for a moment, the monk replied. What do we do up there? I will tell you. We fall down and we get out. We fall down and we get up. We fall down and when we get up, that's yet. That's what the Christian life really is all about. We belong to what some have called the society of skin knees. We fall down and we have to get up again and again and again. And that's our choice because we know what we are here for. No matter what the circumstances are around us, we can worship and praise God because it's not about what's happening to us. It's about why we are here. Do you know why you are here this morning? Do you know the why of your life. It will give you the ability to have joy and peace in the situations around you when it doesn't make sense to have it. Just like Paul and Silas. Hat. Come on and get your job back. No. Your purpose. Know God's plan that's working in your life. Get excited about what he's doing in you and through you. And then you will know the power of God's love for you and the peace and joy he can give you in the middle of it when you're living on purpose. Thank you for listening today. And I invited to join me again tomorrow and every week, day Monday to Friday as together. We look to make our days better by starting right with Danny Mac. Have a great day. God bless.