But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.

—Acts 16:25-26

It can sometimes be tempting to think that God’s this aloof figure that we can never really know, but since I began writing, I’ve been blown away by how eager God seems to be to reveal who He is daily. That’s why I write, and that’s why every Sunday I approach my time at church with spiritual eyes that are actively searching for what God wants to show me and spiritual ears that are actively listening to what God wants to say to me.

This week, Acts 16 is where He took me. It tells the story of Paul and Silas as they are thrown in prison for freeing a girl from demon possession. 

It’s a pretty famous story. The two men have been illegally beaten and thrown in prison without trial, but that night, instead of griping and complaining and threatening to sue (which they could have done since they were both Roman citizens), they spend the night praying and singing songs of praise.

Then, in the middle of their impromptu praise and worship service, an earthquake comes out of nowhere, and instead of causing the prison to crumble, it makes all the doors swing open and all the handcuffs fall off.

As I was listening to the group of ladies I was studying with discuss this passage, three lessons stood out to me.

1. God is both powerful and good.
   
   When Luke describes the earthquake, he’s very clear—it wasn’t just a little tremor. This was a huge earthquake. In English, the phrase is translated as great earthquake, but if we look back at the original Greek, the word translated as great is the word megas. It was literally a mega-quake.
   
   There was no question where this magnitude of earthquake came from because here’s the cool thing—even though the earthquake was strong enough to destroy buildings, God didn’t allow it to destroy the prison. That earthquake was specifically meant to break chains, not to destroy.
   
2. Publicly praising God can open the door for God to reveal Himself to others.
   
   Verse 25 shows us that Paul and Silas were not making it a secret Who they had chosen to follow and serve. Luke says that even at midnight, they were praying and singing hymns of praise to God. Instead of complaining about their painful and humiliating situation, they chose to publicly delight in the Lord.
   
   At the end of verse 25, Luke records this line: and the prisoners were listening to them. The word listening doesn’t mean that they were sitting there begrudgingly because they were the definition of a captive audience. It means they were listening attentively, and it’s after Paul and Silas have the attention of the whole prison that God decides to perform the miracle of deliverance via earthquake.
   
   Remember, this was an incredibly strong earthquake that should have destroyed the prison, but all that happened was that doors opened and chains fell off. Paul and Silas pointed the way to God, and God decided to show off a bit. It was a clear demonstration for those people of the power of God
   
3. Deliverance isn’t always easy or comfortable.
   
   The only purpose of this earthquake was to deliver Paul and Silas from their unjust imprisonment. It was good that they were released because they didn’t deserve to be in prison, but I think it’s interesting that God didn’t pick a more comfortable way to go about it.
   
   This was a mega-quake and Paul and Silas were chained, probably sitting directly on the ground, with both their hands and feet bound. After the first couple of bumps, they probably had full contact with the ground and I doubt it was as nice as sitting in a massage chair in the mall.
   
   We often think of deliverance as something beautiful and exciting, and it is, but we see here that it won’t always be easy and comfortable. We still live in a broken world, and we know from trips to the doctor’s or dentist’s office that even good and necessary things can hurt. So when we approach an area in our lives that needs deliverance, we need to do so with the understanding that it may hurt, but God’s still about the business of setting His children free if we let Him.

If we look at these three lessons together, we get a complete picture of the hopeful response we should have when we find ourselves in need of deliverance. We should approach it knowing that it might not be comfortable or easy, but we should also approach it with hope, praising God for being a God who delights in delivering His children because when we do, we point the world directly to Him.