September 2011

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Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle.
Psalm 43:3


The Rest of the Story. . .

 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.  Philippians 4:13

             We're very familiar with that verse, yes?  We see it everywhere: on plaques, coffee mugs, notecards, and bookmarks.  And that's a good thing!  It's one of those superstar verses, one of the first that comes to mind after we send up an, "Oh, God, help!" prayer.  We're floundering around in whatever misery-- money troubles, broken relationships, the hours we have to spend with a grumpy co-worker or boss doing a job we don't enjoy-- and this verse comes to mind and comforts us.  We aren't alone!  Christ is right there with us, and it's His strength from which we draw.  Ahhh!  Relief.  And this is quite true, and such a marvelous blessing of comfort when we're struggling.  But what about when we're succeeding?

            Recently, the Lord has blessed me with success in my writing.  I've won several awards and one of my poems will soon appear in a major national literary magazine.  Great, you say.  No worries.  Not so at all!  It's really shaken me up!  What I've come to recognize through this experience is that I'm a lot more comfortable with teetering on the edge of failure than I am with standing on the platform of success.  Struggle is familiar, success. . . well, not so much.

            In the household in which I was raised, pride was seen as about the most unholy state in which one could be. Compliments for appearance or achievements were kept to a minimum as a preventative measure.  The intention was good, but the method left something to be desired. (As a parent I can certainly identify with having good intentions, but going about parenting in a less-than-perfect way so this is not meant as a criticism of my parents who were only doing the best they knew to do.)  But what I've only recently come to recognize is that, as a result of this upbringing, I have wrongly viewed struggle as holy and success as somehow unholy.  But the Lord, bless His holy Name, recently corrected this mistaken belief of mine through the reading of His Word.  Let's look at the context of our very familiar superstar verse, in particular, the verse just preceding.

I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.  Philippians 4:12

            Why is that all we usually see when we read that verse are the phrases, "humble means", "going hungry", and "suffering need"?  Maybe it's because we're more familiar with struggle than success?  But what hit me like a ton of bricks the other evening when the Lord led me to look at our very familiar verse in context, was that, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me," also applies to those times of "prosperity,"  "of being filled," and of "having abundance."  Christ gives us His strength just as much during those times as He does during our times of trouble!  And we most surely need it then just as much.  If success were an unholy state, Christ would by no means strengthen us in it!

And while pride is an unholy state (pride was the sin that got Lucifer kicked out of heaven), success is not.  "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."  Even succeed!

 

 

Daye Phillippo

August 2011