SCRIPTURE PROMPT

Disaster or Achievement — It Depends on Your Perspective

Praise in a situation of pain and difficulty is not denial, it is powerful in bringing God’s presence

Paul was in a bad place — literally the worst of bad places, a Roman prison, with no apparent hope of fair trial or release. A sentence of death by some version of violence hung over him.

What would you and I write to our friends or supporters in that situation? A last-minute appeal for help? A plea for support in our personal tragedy, some crumb of comfort?

Paul doesn’t see it like that. His focus is not on himself. He has been through so much on his travels — shipwrecks, riots, floggings, the agony of the stocks in jail, even being stoned and left for dead — he is beyond caring. He’s thinking about the finish line of his marathon which is to be received into the open arms of Jesus.

His captors cannot harm someone who is dead to himself. In an earlier letter, Paul wrote to churches in Galatia:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, NIV)

However, spiritually, Paul was in a very good place. He writes:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21, NIV)

For every day of his remaining alive in that prison, there would be different soldiers to talk to. Those assigned to guard him would rotate, and others would have access to this unusually engaging prisoner.

Although confined, he had opportunity, all day and every day, to tell people about Jesus, the Son of God, and the story of how he had come to know Him personally. His had been a rollercoaster life, achievements mixed with persecutions and difficulties, and knowing Jesus present with Him in all of it.

If they weren’t at first drawn to his beliefs, he had an incredible fund of stories to share, and those stories were fundamentally about how God had found him and used him to reach others. Boring guard duty was transformed by hearing the latest story of Paul’s escapes!

The takeaway for us is that there is always more than one perspective available to us. We can stick with our perspective, or put alongside it the more expansive heavenly perspective. We may not like the small picture with us at the centre of it, but there is a much bigger picture where Jesus dwarfs our difficulties with His majestic presence. And difficult situations are often good contexts for telling your own story of God’s goodness.

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Ian Greig is a former pastor now writing on faith in God free from religious constructions which often disguise it. He also contributes to Faith Fragments and The Living Word on Medium and Substack.