Live With Contentment Series

It brings to mind Paul’s reflection upon the tough circumstances of his life. After writing about the thorn in his flesh that he repeatedly asked God to remove, he wrote (2 Cor. 12:7-10): “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Because of this ever present power of God through Jesus Christ within him, Paul said I CAN DO ALL THINGS. Years ago newspapers all over the country carried the story of Arnold Lemerand of Southgate Michigan. For six years Arnold had avoided picking up anything heavy because he had suffered a heart attack. But when he saw a 5 year-old boy pinned beneath an iron pipe, Arnold lifted the pipe and freed the boy. The pipe weighed 1800 pounds. God made our bodies in such a way that they can respond in amazing ways during times of stress and danger. Through His Holy Spirit God does the same thing in us spiritually. Paul says not that he can do literally ALL things, but he can do what ALL THINGS he needs to do, those things God asks him to do.

When I was in the 3rd or 4th grade I must have had this verse as a memory verse in Sunday School. What I remember is walking to school thinking about this verse. I was contemplating that if I can do all things then I ought to be able to lift up the car next to me – because Jesus is in me. Fortunately I didn’t try to lift the car! I had not yet learned – been initiated into – the full meaning of doing all things – that when a situation is about to overcome us, when a situation demands spiritual strength beyond the norm, JESUS STRENGTHENS US with a strength for that situation.

During the Great Depression in the early 1930s a panel of speakers, including Clarence Darrow, the distinguished attorney and professed atheist, were addressing a meeting of people from Chicago’s Southside—most of them African American. The economic conditions were at their worst: money and jobs were scarce and Darrow used that fact to point out the plight of the African American people. He summed up their woes, concluding, “And yet you sing? No one can sing like you do! What do you have to sing about?” Quick as a flash, a lady in the congregation shouted, “We got Jesus to sing about!” And her response was followed by many “Amens” and “Yeses” and “That’s rights.” Uncharacteristically, Darrow for once was stopped dead in his tracks. He had no response, for he was face to face with that which cannot be rationalized, hardly even talked about, in human terms—people who can sing through tears and above their fears because they walk with the One who strengthens them to do all things. (vi)