It's here: Part 9 of the 9 part series - how to get prayers answered
The Acts of The Apostles
DAILY DEVOTIONAL
8/11/20262 min read
Counted Worthy
"So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." (Acts 5:41, NKJV)
They arrest me again, and this time something in me is more tired than afraid. I know the sequence by now, the false charges, the hard hands, the long night in a cell wondering if this is finally the time it goes further than it has before. An angel opens the door before dawn, and for one unguarded moment I think, maybe this is grace telling me to run, to disappear somewhere they'll never find me again. I want that, if I'm honest. I want to be done being the man they keep dragging into rooms like this. But my feet carry me back to the temple at first light anyway, because whatever mercy just opened that door, it wasn't offering me an exit. It was offering me one more day.
They find me again. This time there's no waiting for questions. The whip comes first. I won't pretend it doesn't hurt, because it does, more than I braced for, and somewhere in the middle of it I go quiet inside myself.
And that is exactly where He meets me. Not after. During. Something rises up in my chest that isn't mine, and it isn't relief and it isn't even courage. It's joy. Actual joy, uninvited, unearned, arriving in the one place logic says it has no business being.
Nearness to Him doesn't wait for your circumstances to improve. It shows up in the wound itself, sits down beside you right there, and somehow makes the wound feel almost small next to the size of who's sitting with you.
If you've ever wondered whether God only shows up after the hard part is over, once you've proven yourself steady enough to deserve Him, hear this the way I wish someone had told me before that morning. He was already there. Before the whip. During it. He isn't waiting on the other side of your pain, applauding once you've made it through. He is present, close, real, in the very center of it, and the joy that found me there was Him. Not a reward for surviving Him. Just Him.
Don't only ask God to move you to the other side of what hurts today. Ask Him to sit with you in the center of it, and let yourself notice He was already there before you asked.
Scripture Promise:
"The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18, NKJV)
Prayer:
Father, you promised to never leave us nor forsake us. When the trials come, help us to remember that you are right there with us, and you have the power to sustain us through it all. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
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