Romans 8:35-39
"A remarkable statement of what faith is about. "Killed all the day long" - yet a winner. Trouble, pain, persecution, and all the rest - but "overwhelming victory". Now this is the amazing thing: the victory is not escape or exemption or protection from any of the things listed. Paul went through them. He did not escape trouble. He was not exempt from human woes. God did not protect even this Very Important Person from public floggings or starvation or anything else. Yet Paul was able to say he was winning the victory through Him who has proved His love for us. How? How had He proved His love?
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. That was the proof of His love - that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary's Cross, though "legions of angels" might have received Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.
The point is that we have to learn to trust in little things, even in what may seem like silly things, if we are ever going to be privileged to suffer in the big things. " Elisabeth Elliot
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