II Corinthians 6:5

The miraculous story of Paul’s voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a wonderful example of the light and the darkness through the journey of faith of human life. And the most remarkable part of the journey is the difficult and narrow places that are interspersed with God’s extraordinary providence and intervention.

It is a common misconception that the Christian’s walk of faith is strewn with flowers and that when God intervenes in the lives of His people, He does so in such a wonderful way as to always lift us out of our difficult surroundings. In actual fact, however, the real experience is quite the opposite. And the message of the Bible is one of alternating trials and triumphs in the lives of “a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), everyone from Abel to the last martyr.