May 26, 2023 – Acts 27
Everybody has bad days. And then there’s Paul.
Let’s recap: Paul was wrongfully imprisoned and then a plot was made to kill him. Even though they were unable to kill him, has was still kept prisoner awaiting trial for over 2 years; he was made a spectacle of; then he was sent on a boat to Rome that is almost blown apart in a storm. They are then shipwrecked on an island. In the next chapter, he even gets bit by a snake. Talk about an insult to injury.
While I hope this hasn’t been your particular experience, maybe this story resonates with you. Maybe you’re stuck in what started as a bad day, but progressed into a bad week, and is now a bad season.
Throughout the recounting of this story in Acts 27, we see how people react to this parade of bad events: People don’t listen to each other, they try to run away to save themselves even when they’re needed and even plan on killing those that they’ve been charged to deliver to Rome, all because of situational anxiety and mistrust combined to bring out the worst in people.
But how did Paul respond? Paul calmly encouraged people, telling them they would be OK, and he listened to the instructions of God. He told the people that each of them would survive, that they needed to eat and take care of themselves, and it’s likely this behavior saved his life from those looking to get rid of the prisoners.
We can all claim to be our best selves on our best days. But in the times when people need us, who are you? What do you cling to? What do you fall back on when everything else seems to be going wrong?
The way we answer these questions is an indicator of the future – not because we go through our day like the “sky is falling,” but because it is inevitable in this fallen world that we will endure hardship. We get to choose to build that foundation, and like Paul, hopefully, it will be the God that delivers us from our storms.