One thing I did not expect after being elected was the number of people that would pray for me.
Some mornings I am choked up and almost brought to tears when I receive texts of scripture and prayers for me, my family, the work we are engaged in and the community we all love.
Yesterday was no different - I received scripture from a faithful constituent that has been sending me 20 or so verses from the Bible every morning. He has just lost his son. His other son is sick, really sick. He is going through so much but he thought to send me comforting words from the opening of 2nd Corinthians where Paul, though facing so many hardships, offers comfort just as he has been comforted by God. (I needed that.)
Immediately after that message, another friend and fellow leader in our community sent those encouraging words, also from Paul, from the end of Romans Chapter 8. I had misread them for most of my life, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
I didn't know what Paul meant when he said "conquerors". It all clicked when I finally got it through my thick skull that Paul was talking about the Roman Imperial Army itself (and the government that ruled the known world). The Romans were the definition of conquerors. The didn't call it the Pax Romana for nothing. War and then peace.
What did it mean to be "more than conquerors"? Bigger? More powerful? More important?
Well, maybe but not in the way I was thinking. Paul was writing to those followers of Jesus who were in Rome. This is where many were facing trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword.
Paul says, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
We are more than conquerors. Paul knew that we are not more powerful in the military sense but we are significantly more world-changing than even the Roman Imperial Army. How would this world change come about? War and then peace? No, no, no.
Paul told us. He begins every letter with how this will come about, "Grace and peace."
We are God's family. We love and comfort one another and, in so doing, we bring God's shalom or peace into our midst.