John Bradshaw - It's a Bad Feeling
It's a bad feeling to know that you are responsible for something that went horribly wrong. Mention the name Bill Buckner to a baseball fan, and the first thing that comes to mind won't be that he played for 21 years in the major leagues or that he won a world series, but instead an error he committed during the world series in 1986. Even though it wasn't solely his fault the Red Sox lost that night and then went on to not win the world series, he felt terrible about the error he made, and no one let him forget it.
In Acts 16, a jail keeper woke up to discover something had gone terribly wrong, "And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out a sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled". He'd been asleep, so he planned to do what he thought was the honorable thing to atone for his carelessness.
Now of course, the prisoners hadn't escaped they were all still in their cells, indicating that even when we have evidence right before our eyes, we often still don't know the full truth of a situation. Had he been asleep? Yes. Were the prison doors open? Yes. Had the prisoners escaped? The logical conclusion would be that, yes, they had, but in this case, it's what the jailkeeper couldn't see that was important.
And that's true in your life as well. You can see what you can see, but you can't see what you can't see, and that's often what makes the difference. That's why it's important not to overreact, not to become discouraged, not to do anything drastic without giving God the opportunity to help you to see the bigger picture, so you always want to trust God, allow things to play out, give God time. Don't overreact because overreacting is never the best course of action. I'm John Bradshaw for It Is Written. Let's live today by Every Word.