“If only my situation was different; then I would be able to praise God.” This belief is very common. We often believe that our attitudes about life and even about God are the result of our circumstances. When things are going well, we feel good, we feel close to God and we believe God is active in our lives. When things become more difficult, more challenging, our feelings change and we can even begin to believe that God abandoned us.

I struggled with this for years and still have to bring these thoughts under control. I convinced myself that once I graduated from college, I would feel secure in my position and ready to lead. Following graduation, I revised the plan with a new necessary accomplishment. However, no matter what stage I completed, those feelings never completely took hold. It was not until a good friend encouraged me to look at what I was doing, that I realized that lasting feelings were not ever going to be the result of an accomplishment. Life would always offer challenges and there would always be something waiting in the future with the false promise of secure feelings. My answer was not in my accomplishments, but my attitude.

That is not always easy to hear. We like to believe that our feelings and perspectives are the result of the actions of others or situation we are in. These may influence us, but ultimately, our experience will be shaped by our beliefs and our attitudes.

There is a wonderful story in the book of Acts. The Apostle Paul and Silas are imprisoned for stirring up trouble. It seems that their preaching about Jesus made some people quite upset and the disturbance landed them in jail. This was not just a night in a cell with the promise of, “leave town and don’t come back.” The morning held the real possibility of torture and maybe even death.

Locked in their cell and guarded by the jailer they faced a challenging night. Who could blame them for fear and concern, maybe even a little anger at the people or God for allowing this to happen? This was unfair and not likely what they were expecting. It was exactly the type of situation that leads to discouragement and depression. Yet, that was not their choice. Here, in the face of danger and death, they were singing.

Paul and Silas made a decision. They put their trust in God and lifted their eyes to a bigger picture than their circumstances, to a God who was larger than anything they faced. They allowed their spirits to take the lead and so, looking squarely at their dark reality, they chose to believe, to sing, and to praise in their prison.

The result was not only their spiritual freedom, but their physical freedom as well, and the blessings did not stop there. This witness to their faith changed the lives of others in prison with them, including the guard. Their willingness to rejoice in their unpleasant circumstances changed lives, and continues to do the same as their story is told 2000 years later.

We face prisons of many kinds in life. Some are made with concrete and bars, while others we fashion brick by brick within our minds and spirits. In those confining moments and seasons, we can lament our circumstances, bemoan our misfortune and give up on our future, but there is another choice. We can decide, like Paul and Silas, to offer our praise in spite of our circumstances. We can declare God’s goodness and his divine possibilities in the face of pain and fear. We can believe with action in the presence of the temptation to doubt. We can praise in our prison.

When we release our faith in these moments, cell doors open, we find freedom and the people around us get changed. I once heard a youth speaker say, “People are waiting on the other side of your obedience.” Maybe, they are also waiting on the other side of our praise. May we find the strength in God to praise in our prison and break free in our faith.