I
had just moved to a new community and knew no one except my in-laws. On Friday night, I thought it would be "safe" to watch the movie at the drive-in theater from a lawn chair in the
back of a pick-up truck. Who was going to see me, right? Monday morning, I
show up for my new job and one of the supervisors says, “I saw you at the
drive-in the other night.”
The
point of that story is: People see us. People watch us. Our circumstances may
not be dire like Paul and Silas’s. We may not have a “captive” audience (no pun
intended) like they did, but we can influence others for good or bad while
oblivious to the fact that we are being observed.
What
if you know you are being watched? Paul and Silas had to be aware that there
were eyes on them when they cast the fortune-telling spirit out of the slave
girl. When they were thrown into prison for throwing the city into an uproar by
advocating customs that were unlawful to Romans (verses 20 and 21), they
couldn’t have thought that no one noticed. When they began praying and singing
hymns from their cell, they knew they had an audience. They took advantage of
every opportunity to play to the crowd. It appears that the only impact they
had on the townspeople was financial, and there is no indication that the other
prisoners’ lives were changed – except that they didn’t escape when they had
the chance. But the jailer was so moved by the behavior of these two men of God that he asked them, “What must I do to
be saved?” Because Paul and Silas prayed and sang instead of complaining about
their circumstances, the jailer and his whole family came to believe in God.
You
just never know who is watching. You may never know whose life is going to be
changed because you modeled Christ in your daily walk. If actions speak louder
than words, make sure yours are shouting Jesus.
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Love it Connie. Thank you for sharing this!
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