do I have to?

"The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them."
And we know the rest of the story. The jail is broken apart by an earthquake, as are the prisoners' chains. Paul and Silas, instead of hoofing it out of there, stick around and wind up witnessing the salvation of the jailer and his family. What a ridiculously crazy day and night for Paul and Silas!!

I was reading this passage in Acts 16 tonight. I have known this story for as long as I can remember. I memorized some of the passage in second grade--that's how far back this story and I go--but tonight I saw something in it that I never saw before. All my life, I was never really surprised that Paul and Silas were worshiping that night. They were apostles, servants called by God, and it was simply what they were supposed to do. It wasn't hard for them to do God's will. But over the years I have realized more and more how very human these Bible heroes were. It wasn't easy for them to do the right thing. It wasn't fun for them to be the leaders and examples God wanted them to be, but they did it anyway. And that is a huge encouragement to me. Tonight, as I sit here, my muscles are fatigued to the point of being murderous. They are so unhappy, I am afraid I'll wake up in the still of the night to hear my quads plotting to dispose of this psychotic volleyball player. Quads are notorious for having plots afoot. But anyway, my point is that I'm in a lot of muscular pain right now, so I can sympathize with the part about Paul and Silas being severely flogged and put in stocks. Tonight I was trying to kneel and nearly fell over because I was soooo sore. Paul and Silas had their backs laid bare, covered in bloody, uncared for gashes, then were chained and put in the stocks. I imagine they were in five times as much pain and discomfort as I am tonight. And then, in the middle of the night, when I would have been groaning and stressing out and probably crying giant, floppy tears of self-pity, Paul and Silas were singing hymns!! If I was praying tonight and heard God asking me to sing praises to him, I am afraid my instinctive response would be to look up squintingly and ask, "now, God? Actually, I'd really prefer not to. How about in the morning, okay? You know that even breathing hurts right now." What a tremendous force of will it must have taken to sing! When every breath made the open wounds on their backs twist in torturous pain, Paul and Silas stifled their natural gasps in order to praise the God whose service got them into this mess in the first place. I want to have a faith like that. I really do. I want to be so caught up in God that serving and worshiping him comes before my comfort--so caught up in God that worshiping him is my comfort. I want to forget my own will and submit it entirely to that of my God. I want to leave life's problems--big and little--to him, trusting that he knows what he's doing. A lot of people would call the book of Acts boring, but when it provides examples like this of what true devotion looks like, it is worth reading, and worth reading often.