Faith is the steel of the soul

Unexpected answers

God counts on us to accept whatever answer to our prayers He gives us, whether or not it be the answer that we wished and expected (See Rom. 15. 30-32). When Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome, he asked for the kind of prayer that is like wrestling with a strong (though unseen) enemy. He asked for prayer for three things, that his service (the offering of alms) might be acceptable to the Jewish Christians; that he might be delivered from the Jews who did not believe; that he might come to them--the Christians of Rome--with joy. The answer to the second of these three prayers was two years in a prison in Caesarea; the answer to the third was two years' imprisonment in Rome. In both cases his was the kind of imprisonment which required the prisoner's right hand to be chained to a soldier's left.

Not many of us love to be under a roof between walls, without being able to go out into the open air. Think what it must have meant to Paul to be not only indoors but never once alone. Think of being chained to a Roman soldier at all hours of the day and night. "That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed" (Rom. 15. 32). There was not much natural joy and refreshment in coming as a chained prisoner.

Nothing was explained. Paul and the men and women of Rome were trusted to accept the unexplained and, like John the Baptist, not to be offended in their Lord.

Do you not think that a great deal of what we call faith is not worth the name? It is too flimsy to be called by so strong a word. Faith is the steel of the soul.--Edges of His Ways, Amy Carmichael