Paul lists a whole array of things that could happen in our lives that could make us think that the powers of darkness have won and God does not love us anymore. The things that are supposed to conquer us, God uses to make us conquerors. Followers of the Risen One can arise from defeat. In self-pity and victimhood we lose. In Christ’s unrelenting, unceasing, unstoppable love you will win, no matter what your current problems are!
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day LONG; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:35-37).
