"Amid All These Things"

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. In his devotional book Victorious Living he shows the characteristic difference of being in the world but not of it:

"If I were to choose a verse that would sum up what I have been trying to say . . . it would be, 'Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who has loved us' (Romans 8.37, Weymouth). This statement combines an intense realism with an amazing assertion of victorious optimism. I say 'realism,' for there is no blinking of the difficulties confronting such living. Look at the context. This is not moony lotus-eating which says that all is well for there are no problems, but an open-eyed frankness that says, 'Yes, I see the difficulties that come from distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger of the sword, from death, from life, from things present, from the future--and yet, and yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors.' It takes in all the facts and yet asserts the central fact of victory.

"Note that word 'amid' [or 'in']. The test of any system is not what it does with the spiritual life, but with the material--'all these things.' What is its relationship with things? Does its spirituality include the material? That is the test. The Vedantist word is, 'Beyond all these things'; the Moslem word is, 'Accommodation to all things'; the Buddhist word is, 'Disillusionment with all these things'; the ordinary Hindu word is, 'Maya of all these things'; the Communist word is, 'Through all these things'; the worldling's word is, 'By all these things'; the Christian's word is , 'Amid all these things.' That word 'amid' depicts relationship to, and yet not identification with all these things. It shows realistic contact, and yet inward transcendence. And that is exactly the relationship we need. We must not blink 'these things,' nor must we be blinded by them. For while we are dependent every moment on matter so that the spiritual life must function through matter or fail to function at all, nevertheless 'life is more than meat.'"