A Devotion from G. Campbell Morgan

“About midnight Paul and Silas were … singing hymns to God. “
-Acts 16:25

This story reveals that which is peculiarly Christian, the victory of the soul over adverse circumstances and the transmutation of opposing forces into allies. Paul who sang that night, in paraphrase, says, “Tribulation works patience, therefore rejoice in tribulation.” He says, “Troubles work an eternal glory that far outweighs them all, therefore we will rejoice in our troubles.” He says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance.” These are things from which the human soul shrinks—tribulation, troubles, sorrow. These things are made the allies of the soul, they work on behalf of the soul. This is the central truth concerning Christian experience: God compels all things to work together for good to those who love him.

The Christian does not say, “What cannot be cured must be endured.” Christianity says, rather, that these things must be endured because they are part of the cure. They have the strange and mystic power to make whole and strong and so to lead on to victory and the final glory. Christianity is never the dour pessimism that submits. Christianity is optimism that cooperates with the process because it sees that, through suffering and weakness, joy and triumph must come.

Two men were in Philippi, in the inner prison, in the stocks, in suffering, in sorrow. But they were in God! Their supreme consciousness was not of the prison or the stocks or the pain but of God. They were not indifferent; pain was pain to them, but they realized how all these things were held in the grasp of the King of the perfect order, whom they knew as their Lord and Master, and, consequently, they sang praises.

All this took place at midnight. That accentuates the difficulty, the loneliness and weariness and pain. Yet the phrase is not really “at midnight.” “About midnight”! To these men midnight was not a definite moment. Midnight is never a stopping place. It is coming, and lo! it is gone.

Midnight, that most terrible hour; but for these men there was no such actual time. It was about midnight, and then they sang, and they sang praises to God.