Rejoice Despite Circumstances

“Cheer up. Things could be worse,” someone said. 

So, I cheered up, and, sure enough, things got worse. 

That old joke has a Murphy’s Law flavor.

Murphy's Law is the name given to an adage (a short saying about general truth) that sounds similar to the original Murphy’s Law: “If something can go wrong, it will.” 

Edward Murphy, an engineer working on a project at Edwards Air Force Base, found a technician’s error and said, “If there's any way to do it wrong, he will find it.” That kind of statement became known as “Murphy’s Law.”  

Here is another Murphy’s Law proverb: “You never find a lost article until you replace it.” 

Remember the old “Hee-Haw” TV show (1969-1992). A segment showed a quartet of “po folks” singing this ditty written by Buck Owens and Roy Clark: 

   “Gloom, despair, and agony on me. 

   “Deep, dark depression, excessive misery. 

   “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

   “Gloom, despair, and agony on me.” 

That expresses how some people feel about life. Though Christians should not feel that way, some may.  

“Discipline is important,” Pastor Raymond D. Burrows said during a recent Bible study, as he talked about trusting God and rejoicing “in” God when things seem to be going wrong. “‘Disciple’ means ‘learner.’”

He talked about Paul and Silas and their run-in with a strange woman (Acts 16) in Philippi, a then-big city in Macedonia (northwest of Greece). 

“They had been directed by God to go into Macedonia but were beaten,” Pastor said. “We’re to rejoice whether things go well or not.”

Why did Paul and Silas get beatings and land in jail?

We’re told that a woman, a “damsel possessed with a spirit of divination,” followed Paul and Silas, crying out, “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.” 

“Divination” involves fortune-telling and trying to find out the future by supernatural means. Some call such people soothsayers.

That woman continued often hollering and directing attention to herself for many days. Paul became fed up — well, the Bible says he was “grieved” — and he turned and said to the spirit inside her, “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And the spirit came out, then! 

Things went downhill fast!  

She’d been making lots of money for her masters by her soothsaying. 

Once the evil spirit left the woman, her masters saw their profits from her soothsaying were going bye-bye. They blew their tops, grabbed Paul and Silas, and dragged them before the judges at the marketplace.  

“These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans,” the merchants said as a crowd grew angry.   

The judges ordered Paul and Silas beaten. 

They ended up in pain, in stocks, in an inner dungeon. But at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them. 

If most of us were in their place, we might be moaning, groaning, and wondering if God cared about us. Paul said he’d been directed by God to visit Macedonia and did not seem discouraged by a severe beating and being thrown in jail.    

“Rejoicing is ‘in the Lord,’ not in our life’s circumstances,” Pastor said. Rejoicing in the Lord enables us to have a focus on and trust in the Lord.” 

No negative factors seem to take Paul and Silas’ minds away from God.

“We usually think our rejoicing is associated with life’s blessings,” Pastor said. “But our rejoicing must be in God, not in life’s blessings. Too much depends on life situations — gloom, despair, agony, etc. We need to say, ‘Lord, I’m rejoicing in YOU. I think that’s a discipline we can develop and maintain this year.”

As Paul and Silas sang and worshiped, a miracle happened.   

“And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.”

“There is a powerful effect from God’s people when they’re rejoicing,” Pastor said. “I think the Lord has put this in my heart — for me, maybe for all of us. Rejoice ‘in the Lord.’ I do think we can develop this discipline of rejoicing in the Lord.”