Pray & Sing in Suffering - Fr. Micah - June 6, 2021

Today on the Sunday of the Blind Man, the Epistle reading comes to us from Acts 16:16-34. In this reading we learn that Paul and Silas are stripped, beaten and thrown into prison after casting out a demon from a young slave girl. Father Micah shares with us a message of encouragement, pertinent to the imprisonment and suffering in our own lives. Paul and Silas find themselves in the darkest part of the inner prison and yet verse twenty-five tells us, they were praying and singing hymns to God, as the other prisoners listened. They turned the prison into a sanctuary, by offering up Glory to God, in the midst of suffering. The story of Daniel in the lion’s den and the three youths in the furnace, along with the Psalms, give us a pattern in Scripture of praying in the midst of suffering. It is important for us to remember not to wait till suffering comes to pray, but to live a consistent, daily life of prayer and follow the example of the saints.