It'll be Alright.

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

All my life I have known this verse.  It was the second verse I memorized after John 3:16, and one of the first sources of my ability to face hardship in any way.  But I had never realized what came before it.

10:”I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.  You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13  I can do all things through Him you strengthens me.”

Reading this passage now, in this stage in my life, I realize something I never could have before.  Always in my youth, I would read the passage and understand it in relation to hardship.  Being brought low, someone is persecuting you; Christ strengthening you to face your hardships.  I had never understood until now: Paul is talking very candidly about living on a support based system.  

In the whole letter before this point, he had been talking about how they were to gather the offering made to the saints.  What I had been reading earlier today, he had been talking about gathering the offering for the saints.  Talking about how it should be gathered ahead of time, to allow for it to be from their desire, talking about how one should give out of their own means, abundantly if in abundance, little if little is had, so that when others are in the opposite situation, they can be sure to support and be supported wisely.  This whole time, my whole life, I didn’t realize that to some degree, Paul is talking about the minutia of his support process, and probably the whole early churches.  The letters are, sometimes, actually just support letters; “I’m here, going here.  I’m doing well; I was struggling for a while, but I’ve made it through it. I miss you guys.  Keep up the good work!”  Now, even more than ever, I feel such a strong tie to the purposes of the Bible.  Now I can see that the people I’ve been reading about all my life had the same struggle as I do as a missionary, raising money for my ministry.  

What’s most powerful, when Paul talks about being able to do all things through Christ, who strengthens him, it’s in relation to knowing how to deal with high provision, and low provision.  Knowing what to do when not enough money comes in for rent that month.  Knowing what to do when that donor drops, or that one has a problem that prevents them from giving for an unforeseen while.  Knowing how to properly live when tons of people give all at once, or you get a good amount of backers, what to do with your abundance.  When he’s talking about knowing what to do through Christ who strengthens him, it’s about provision, support, money to some degree.  More than that, yes, because it’s also about decisions, hardship, persecution.  But the initial application is much more important: This verse I’ve used my entire life to bring myself closer to Christ, is about the situation I’m in right, now. It’s about something minute.  It’s almost seemingly an off the cuff, saying, “Yeah, I can handle this, because I know Christ’s here, no big.”  Something I had always found so profound, about something so simple.  It’s an uplifting to me.  It means, all the grandiosity we make about life, all the meaning we give to our day to day experiences, how we want everything to be so epic and seismic,  Pillipians 4:13 is about something small, minute, and oft seen as ‘not as holy’: finances, provision, and the ability to cope with them.  This brings it down to earth for me.  It tells me, maybe not everything is as grand and majestic and huge, or has to be.  Maybe it can just be, and be simple, and mundane as if often is, and it’s still Christ.  Because no matter how simple and minute it is, and maybe even more as it is small, it’s okay, because I can do all things through him who strengthens me.