Finding Strength in Life’s Roller Coaster Moments
Have you ever felt like your life is a roller coaster? One moment you’re climbing to incredible heights, feeling on top of the world, and the next moment you’re plunging downward, your stomach in your throat, wondering what just happened. This emotional whiplash isn’t just a modern experience—it’s exactly what the first Christian missionaries experienced as they spread the Gospel.
The Missionary Roller Coaster: Paul and Barnabas’s Journey
Paul and Barnabas experienced the ultimate spiritual roller coaster as they traveled from city to city. In Antioch, they had witnessed an incredible revival—a massive response to their message of grace. They were riding high, experiencing success beyond their wildest dreams. But then religious leaders got jealous, poisoned the community against them, and they were run out of town.
Did they curl up and complain? Did they have a pity party? No—they grabbed their things and moved on to the next town. This pattern would repeat itself throughout their missionary journey.
What Happens When You Refuse to Quit?
When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Iconium, they didn’t waste time licking their wounds. They went straight to the synagogue and spoke boldly about Jesus. The result? “A great multitude, both of the Jews and of the Greeks believed.” They experienced another revival!
But just like before, the unbelieving Jews stirred up trouble. They poisoned minds against Paul and Barnabas, creating division in the community. What started as whispers and slander grew into a violent plot to stone them.
How Should Christians Respond to Opposition?
What’s fascinating is how Paul and Barnabas responded to this growing tension. The Bible says, “Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord.” When the going got rough, they didn’t run—they got stronger and bolder.
Eventually, the situation became too dangerous. When a violent mob formed to stone them, they fled to Lystra and Derby. But they didn’t go there to hide—they went there to continue preaching the Gospel. They never gave up their mission, regardless of the opposition.
What Does Faith That Can Be Seen Look Like?
In Lystra, Paul encountered a man who had been crippled from birth—he had never walked. As Paul was preaching, he noticed something remarkable about this man: he “had faith to be healed.”
Think about that for a moment. How could Paul see this man’s faith? What does faith that can be seen look like? For Paul to notice this man’s faith from across a crowd, it must have been extraordinary—bigger than a mustard seed.
When Paul commanded the man to stand, he didn’t just slowly get up. The Bible says “he leaped and walked.” This wasn’t just a physical healing; it was a demonstration of what happens when our faith becomes visible to others.
Why Do People Sometimes Misinterpret God’s Work?
The crowd’s reaction to this miracle reveals how easily people can misinterpret God’s work. Instead of recognizing God’s power, they assumed Paul and Barnabas were Greek gods in human form. They called Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes,” and even brought oxen to sacrifice to them.
Paul and Barnabas were horrified. They tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd, crying out: “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God.”
How Quickly Can People Turn Against You?
Just when it seemed things couldn’t get more chaotic, Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived—the very people who had driven them out of previous cities. These opponents had traveled over 80 miles on foot, fueled by hatred and determination to stop Paul’s message.
What happened next demonstrates how fickle human approval can be. The same crowd that was ready to worship Paul and Barnabas as gods was persuaded to stone Paul. They beat him with rocks until he appeared lifeless, then dragged his body outside the city like garbage.
What Does Supernatural Resilience Look Like?
This is where we see Paul’s extraordinary resilience. After being stoned and left for dead, the Bible simply says: “when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city.”
He didn’t run away. He didn’t hide. He got up and went right back into the same city where they had just tried to kill him. Whether this was a miraculous healing or supernatural toughness, the message is clear: you can’t keep God’s person down.
Even more remarkably, Paul and Barnabas didn’t avoid the cities that had persecuted them. They deliberately returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch—the very places where they had faced the most opposition. Why? To strengthen the new believers there, “exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.'”
Life Application
The Christian life isn’t a pleasure cruise—it’s a roller coaster, and sometimes it’s a battlefield. When we get knocked down, when life stones us and leaves us in a ditch, when the crowd that praised us yesterday turns on us today, what should our response be?
The command that emerges from Paul’s example is simple but not easy: Get up again. Get up again. Get up again.
We need to stop being surprised when we get knocked down. We need to stop putting our hope in the applause of the world, because that crowd will turn on us in a heartbeat. Our hope can’t be in our circumstances or our reputation. Our hope must be in the only God who raises the dead.
And why do we get up? Not just for ourselves, but because there’s another believer watching to see if our faith is real. We get up so we can walk back through the very place of our pain and find those in need and say, “I know it’s hard. I have the scars to prove it. But keep going, because our God is faithful.”
Ask yourself:
Where in my life have I been knocked down and need to get up again?
Is my faith visible enough that others can see it?
Am I putting my hope in people’s approval or in God’s faithfulness?
How can I use my scars and struggles to strengthen someone else this week?
The challenge this week: Identify one area where you’ve been tempted to stay down, and make the decision to get up again. Then find someone who needs encouragement and share how God has been faithful through your struggles.