Discerning Open Doors

This is what the Lord showed me in prayer today-

Acts 16:25-32:
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.   The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.   But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”
The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.   He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved —you and your household.”  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.

Paul and Silas were in jail. They had been doing the work of the Lord, and they ended up in jail because of it. Seemingly unjust, yet while there, they kept praying and kept praising the Lord. They didn't let their circumstances stop their joy. They didn't take their eyes off the Lord. Then suddenly, at the midnight hour, the darkest part of the night, the Lord shook the very foundation of that jail and threw every door open in that place. If it were me, my first reaction would have probably been, "WooHoo...the Lord has heard my prayer and I am FREE!!"...I may have seen those doors fly open and my chains fall and took it as a sign from God that it was my time to run! But the Lord showed me this morning that not every door is a door I am called to walk through. Not every opportunity that presents itself to me is mine to take. What if Paul and Silas and all the other prisoners had run off? There would have been no one there to stop the guard from killing himself. There would have been no voice of truth to bring real life to that Philippian jailer's despair. Sometimes the Lord has us in a specific place for reasons we do not know. Sometimes injustice causes us to find ourselves in situations we would never wish on our worst enemy. But what if our present situation is just a means to bring eternal life to someone else? What if the trials we are going through are part of a bigger picture? Then it will have all been worth it! Had it not been for the fact that although freedom presented itself face to face to Paul and Silas, but they obeyed the Lord and stayed to be a light in a dark place, that jailor would never have heard the message of the gospel that changed his life and ultimately his whole household forever.
So in the midst of your trial, in the middle of your pain and frustrations, keep a prayer on your lips and a song in your heart, because that which you are experiencing today might be the key to someone else's salvation tomorrow.