「其餘的人，有的可以用木板，有的可以用船上的東西上岸。這樣，眾人都安全得救上了岸。」－使徒行傳27:44
特別值得我們留心注意的，就是人在各樣的險境中，反而能經歷神特殊的介入和保守。
保羅這一路的旅程，讓我們看見一個事實：一個神的孩子能夠歷經百般浩劫，終究靈中不至消耗殆盡。
因為在大馬色為主作剛強見證，他不得不抱頭躲避猶太人的追殺；聖經並沒有記載這時火車火馬風馳電頃的從天而降，護送這位神的使徒離開；我們所看見的，乃是保羅被人用筐子從城牆上縋下去，逃離惡者的手。
這就是耶穌基督的僕人，裝在一只舊衣筐裡，躲躲藏藏地偽裝成裝滿了髒臭衣服的筐子，羞羞慚慚從窗口逃脫仇敵的凶暴。
接著我們又看見保羅在監獄中的幾個月；看見他徹夜禱告禁食，為親友遺棄，被殘暴的敵人鞭打羞辱。
即便是神領他走出牢獄，他還得被迫面對海中怒吼的波濤，面對狡猾不忠的水手；雖然最後仍然脫離了劫難，但卻不是天上飛船忽然降下，接走尊貴的囚犯，也不是神蹟式的出現天使來平靜浪濤。
這次的險象環生，並非含有任何超自然的跡象；船上的人，有的抓住圓杆，有的緊抱住木板，有的坐在船的殘骸上，有的縱身跳水游到岸上；就這樣，一個個存活了下來。
這就是神命定我們生活的模式。
我們所傳的福音，乃是要給那些在現實生活中生活的人；他們面對成千具體、實際的環境，他們需要天天經歷神具體、實際的拯救。
－信心之路的困境
"And the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land" (Acts 27:44).The marvelous story of Paul's voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a fine pattern of the lights and shades of the way of faith all through the story of human life. The remarkable feature of it is the hard and narrow places which we find intermingled with God's most extraordinary interpositions and providences.
It is the common idea that the pathway of faith is strewn with flowers, and that when God interposes in the life of His people, He does it on a scale so grand that He lifts us quite out of the plane of difficulties. The actual fact, however, is that the real experience is quite contrary. The story of the Bible is one of alternate trial and triumph in the case of everyone of the cloud of witnesses from Abel down to the latest martyr.
Paul, more than anyone else, was an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being crushed or broken in spirit. On account of his testifying in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and obliged to fly for his life. but we behold no heavenly chariot transporting the holy apostle amid thunderbolts of flame from the reach of his foes, but "through a window in a basket," was he let down over the walls of Damascus and so escaped their hands. In an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry, or groceries, the servant of Jesus Christ was dropped from the window and ignominiously fled from the hate of his foes.
Again we find him left for months in the lonely dungeons; we find him telling of his watchings, his fastings, and his desertion by friends, of his brutal and shameful beatings, and here even after God has promised to deliver him, we see him for days left to toss upon a stormy sea, obliged to stand guard over the treacherous seaman, and at last when the deliverance comes, there is no heavenly galley sailing from the skies to take off the noble prisoner; there is no angel form walking along the waters and stilling the raging breakers; there is no supernatural sign of the transcendent miracle that is being wrought; but one is compelled to seize a spar, another a floating plank, another to climb on a fragment of the wreck, another to strike out and swim for his life.
Here is God's pattern for our own lives. Here is a Gospel of help for people that have to live in this every day world with real and ordinary surroundings, and a thousand practical conditions which have to be met in a thoroughly practical way.
--Hard Places in the Way of Faith
