The Pinkie Happiness Gauge

A Quick Look: Acts 26:23-25
Really Read It: Acts 16: 1-40
Memorize: Psalm 135:3 Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant.

Here is a sad page from the journal of a foolish little girl who lived just 500 years into the future. Besides the ear lobe computer and the shoulder rockets, Zola has a happiness gauge on her right pinkie nail.
Zola’s Journal for November 8, 2509
I went to church today but I didn’t do anything. I mean I couldn’t do any worship or good prayers or anything because my pinkie showed just 62% happy. I like that better than the really low numbers for sure. But I never worship God unless He makes me at least 80% happy. Oh wow, it just went down two more points. I bet that’s because I don’t like the shape of that cloud right there. Oh well, I’ll see how the clouds and the pinkie look next week. Gotta go. Bye.

The 2009 happiness gauge is just in your head, and you don’t put it in a number. But a bunch of kids use it the same way that Zola did. How many kids are great worshipers when things are going great but do nothing when things don’t go the way you want? Your job is not to worship God because you are happy. You are not ready to worship because your life is easy. Don’t worship God because nothing bad happened to you. Worship God because of who God is, and that never changes.
Paul and Silas are a great example of this. You should read their whole story in Acts 16, but I want to put some of it right here in my words too. Paul and Silas made a rich guy really mad. It is pretty weird the way they did it. They got a demon out of this guy’s slave. But with the demon this slave made money for the owner. So the slave owner was so mad at Paul and Silas that they took them to court. They were able to get Paul and Silas in trouble. A lot of trouble. Paul and Silas were beaten (flogged really) and chained up in prison. I know a little bit about what happened when men were flogged and really is it too bad to put in here, but it is bad, bad, painful, bad stuff. And Paul and Silas got that for helping a girl. They did nothing wrong. What if Silas had a little pinkie happiness gauge? What would it show?
But he worshipped and Paul worshipped in the prison into the night. They were loud worshipers even though the other prisoners could hear them. Most kids won’t worship loud enough for the person next to them in church to hear. These guys worshipped loud and they did it when things were bad.
The story has a really neat ending. God set them free with an earthquake, but they didn’t leave. Then the prison guard started following Jesus and made great friends with Paul and Silas. And Paul and Silas wouldn’t leave even when the big bosses told them to, because they weren’t treated right. You should read all of that and you can learn a lot of lessons from it. Like the power of God (that’s the earthquake part) or what you should act like after you get saved (you could learn that from the prison guard.)
After you read all of that, remember that Paul and Silas had it really bad and they worshipped God because He is God. They weren’t worshipping to get something. They worshipped because of the greatness, powerfulness, brightness of an awesome, forever God.