Thursday, September 20, 2012

Overcoming Anxiety


It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, "These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation." She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" And it came out at that very moment. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities, and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, "These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans." The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened.(Acts 16:16-26)

From a practical aspect, this is one of the most obvious reasons Paul had such a successful career.  Because he learned how to defeat stress, he was able to function successfully in some very stressful situations.  In fact, he seemed to thrive in situations that would have left many people immobilized with anxiety, anger, or discouragement.  Other problems along the way? Try being stoned, scourged (five times), and being beaten with fists, rods and words. He’d been scored, chased, scandalized and slandered.  The apostle Paul is the New Testament’s version of an “unsinkable Molly Brown.” As was the case for the Titanic’s most famous survivor, Paul simply refused to go down with the ship … literally. Three times Paul was shipwrecked, and he once spent a full day – “a night and a day,” as he puts it – on the open sea.

Never did Paul show his ability to stand apart from the circumstances more clearly than the night he and Silas sang in the bottom of that prison.  Their backs were bleeding and bruised, with feet in stocks probably made of worn-out crosses.  A song, there? Then?  The record shows that an earthquake set Paul and Silas free that night, but their songs tell us they’d been set free long before the chains fell loose.

From a practical aspect, this is one of the most obvious reasons Paul had such a successful career. Because he learned how to defeat stress, he was able to function successfully in some very stressful situations. In fact, he seemed to thrive in situations that would have left many people immobilized with anxiety, anger, or discouragement.

How often we hear the statement, “It’s not what happens to you that makes or breaks you but how you handle it.”  It seems Paul and Silas knew something of that.  Singing a song on a bed of sickness, in an unemployment line, when friends have betrayed you or when life seems to have dealt you a raw blow does not happen without some deep faith and understanding. 
 

 Scripture to Claim:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27

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