Thursday, October 23, 2014
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I'm the early riser in our family, so it's not uncommon for me to be in the bathroom around 6:00 in the morning; only one awake. Even when our children were at home I made a science of being quiet in the morning so I didn't wake up my wife or anyone else who was sleeping.
One morning I was half awake, and I was startled when I suddenly heard the gentle strains of a song. I didn't have a radio on or anything, and I'd never heard this in the bathroom before. I'm thinking, "What's going on?" And I recognized the song, "It's a Small World After All." Well, I'm in this dazed condition. I couldn't figure out where the music was coming from. Is there a radio on? An alarm? I searched high and low. And finally I found out where the music was coming from. It was coming from the toilet paper. Yeah, the roll of toilet tissue in the bathroom! See, my wife had rigged the tissue with this (This will tell you something about her.) little device that plays a song every time you rolled it. You go, "Oh, no!" Let me tell you, that music was very unexpected. It got my attention and I have to tell you, it brightened up a pretty bleary time of day.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Music When You Least Expect It."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 16:22. Paul and Silas have been preaching the gospel. The town got incensed over it. The crowd's been attacking them. It has not been a good day. It says, "The crowds 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. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet to the stocks." Now, it's just getting worse and worse here.
Then it says, "About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the other prisoners were listening to them." God sends a very violent and dramatic earthquake at this point that lets Paul and the other prisoners loose. And ultimately it led to the jailer and his family dramatically turning to Christ.
But let's go back to the part about Paul and Silas singing at midnight. You think, "Wait! Something is wrong in this picture. They can't move. They're flogged, imprisoned, stripped, and they're singing? What's going on here?" I mean, I would expect to read that Paul and Silas were complaining at midnight. But there's not something wrong in this picture. There's something very right.
Like that little song in the bathroom. This is music when you least expect it. Not at a time of victory or prosperity. It couldn't have come from anything going on around them. It had to come from inside them.
Now, there's another way that this midnight concert was like that early morning bathroom concert. It got people's attention! It says the other prisoners were listening. You bet they were. I mean, here's someone facing the same hardships you are, except they're doing it with joy rather than attitude. Maybe you're going through one of life's long nights right now and you've taken a beating. Maybe you've been stripped of things you care about. You're in one of those prisons that doesn't have walls. How are you handling it? Are you like all the other prisoners? Or is the Christ inside of you, giving you the grace to sing when you otherwise would sink?
See, positiveness and joy are not feelings, they're a choice. I call it the "rejoice choice." You focus on your Lord as they were with these hymns. You fill up on Christian music. You quote the verses. You quote the promises. Then you focus on your opportunity. Paul and Silas probably looked around and said, "Whoa, we've got a captive audience. Literally there are people watching us now that will see how we respond to this."
People watch you when you're in the midnight darkness more than any other time. The greatest impact of your life comes at the time of your greatest pain. If you let God take this moment, He will give you unexplainable grace and unexplainable joy that will lift you and everyone around you.
My musical surprise came early in the morning, not late at night. But I know that no one can ignore your life if it produces music at midnight; music when it's dark, music when they least expect it.