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Prison Experiences? Seeing Mud or Star?

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. 
Philippians 1:18-20

Once a golfer went  to a fortune teller. And the the golfer said, "I have one question. Will there be golf courses in heaven? Fortune teller said, "Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is, in heaven the golf courses are so beautiful, so magnificent, they are beyond human imagination." The golfer hearing this replied, "How could there be any bad news with that?" The fortune teller told, "Well, the bad news is, you have a game booked to start at 8.30 tomorrow morning."

Predicting the future has been a favourite pastime for many. Way back diviners, priests would use all sorts of methods that they said was able to read the future. Predicting the future is forbidden by scripture, and the reason they're forbidden is simple. They are fake as it is just making a guess. Only God knows the future and only God can predict the future.

Though we can't predict future circumstances we can predict future responses. In these verses we see how Paul does it. Up to this point in the letter, Paul has been looking at events that happened in the past. For eg. in v.3 Paul says, I thank God upon every remembrance of you. In v.5 he is thankful for their partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. In v.12, he says, I want you to know the things that have happened to me have happened for the furtherance of the gospel.

All of these are past experiences. Paul is in jail. He is writing to the Philippians about what happened to him in the past and what is happening to him in the present. Now he turns and he looks to the future. And notice the words, for instance, in v.18 Yes I will rejoice, v.19 for I know that this will turn out, v.20 so now Christ will be magnified. 

Now the truth is, the future was uncertain for Paul. He did not know which way the winds of Roman justice would be blowing for him. He knew that he would stand trial. That was sure. He doesn't know what's going to happen in the circumstances of life, yet he makes predictions about his responses to those circumstances.

If we are a follower of Christ, we can predict what our future responses will be. It like the old Dale Carnegie saying - Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.

Trials are not planned. We seldom can anticipate the problems we're going to experience in life. That's probably good because if we could anticipate them we'd run the other way and we wouldn't get the benefit from them. We don't have to plan a crisis. They are unplanned and unpredictable - when we least expect them.

Its inconvenient when we fall into a problem or crisis suddenly. Some are minor inconveniences and some are major inconveniences. We have all kinds and shapes of problems. Some problems are custom made and we know it.

Victor Frankl, the Jewish psychologist who spent time in the Nazi concentration camp in Germany said, "They stripped me naked. They took everything - my wedding ring, watch. I stood there naked and all of a sudden realized at that moment that although they could take everything away for me - my wife, my family, my possessions - they could not take away my freedom to choose how I was going to respond." Victor Frankl choose to rejoice in the situation and so did Paul.

Dear Friends, as Paul looks out from the prison bars in Rome he doesn't see mud. He sees stars. In our troubles and painful experiences are we seeing the mud or the star. We might not be able to control the circumstances but we can control the way we respond. Let us pray that we may be able to choose wisely to respond to the uncalled for circumstances in our life as and when they come.

God Bless you.

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