Acts 16:22-25 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.

In his book, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson makes a great point. People are either complainers or worshippers. Your tendency, your default reaction is either to complain about circumstances or worship God. In reality, the circumstances that surround these two types of people are typically not that different. What is different is their perspective.

Consider Paul and Silas. By most accounts, they were having a really bad day. I would have understood if they vented a little by complaining, but that was not their mindset. They worshipped God and people took notice. I want to be like that.

Too often, we pray for God to change our circumstances. We should be praying for God to change our perspective. God, give us a glimpse of your perspective. Had Paul and Silas prayed for God to keep them from getting beaten and thrown in jail, if they would have prayed for God to ease the pain or provide a good attorney, they would have missed the miraculous earthquake jailbreak that gave God glory and opened the eyes of some of the toughest men in town to the power of the Living God.