If you’re going through a hard time, read these words: ‘Then Jews…came there; and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city’ (vv. 19-20 NKJV). Notice two phrases: ‘supposing him to be dead’ and ‘he rose up.’ Paul was stoned but not silenced; beaten but not defeated. ‘We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed’ (2Corinthians 4:8-9 NKJV). Imagine satan standing over Paul like a referee standing over a boxer who’s on the canvass. On the count of nine Paul gets up and says, ‘I may be down, but I’m not out!’ He was a defiant optimist, a self-encourager who knew how to lift himself and those around him. One day in the heat of battle, Lord Nelson’s enemies flashed him a signal to surrender. Picking up his telescope, he looked through it and announced, ‘I can’t see any sign of surrender!’ During World War II, Churchill warned the French that, if necessary, Britain would fight on alone. Their generals sent him a telegram saying, ‘In three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.’ Undeterred, Churchill took to the airwaves and announced, ‘We shall never, never surrender!’ He lifted Britain up by its bootstraps! After the war, Churchill addressed the Canadian Parliament. Wearing his hallmark, bulldog expression and waving the telegramme,he announced, ‘Huh! Some chicken, and some neck!’ The word for you today is—get back up, God is on your side.
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