We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 2 Corinthians 1:8.
I can do all things through him who gives me
strength. Philippians 4:13
Do you see any contradiction between these two verses? On
the face of it, surely yes - one is about hopelessness and despair from someone
who, looking back, is even surprised that he has survived at all; the other is
a declaration, bursting with confidence and optimism, that nothing is beyond
his God-given strength.
The seemingly contradictory thing is that the same man, the
apostle Paul, wrote both verses – though at different points in his life. We
are used to thinking of Paul as one of the great giants of faith, so the
Philippians verse sounds very natural - “Well, of course, that’s Paul, isn’t
it?” – whereas 2 Corinthians 1:8 may come as a bit of a shock – “Hey, that’s
not like Paul at all!”
If such a great follower of Jesus can experience such
diametrically opposed shifts of mood, surely there are things the rest of us
can learn? I think so, anyway.
First, very simply, such unwelcome things can and do happen.
Or, as my children used to say with a shrug of the shoulders after something
had gone wrong at school, “stuff happens”.
We often say that “the Christian life isn’t easy”, but do
we really mean it, or is it just a platitude we trot out to acknowledge that,
as people say, “life has its ups and downs”? Jesus, after all, told his followers
that they must “take up your cross and follow me”. That’s serious, isn’t
it? And it’s a reality we need to seriously digest. Have we done so?
On the positive side it means that we needn’t feel ashamed,
surprised or guilty if we find ourselves struggling. There’s no need to develop
a mentality, even subconsciously, that “if I’m a Christian I should be immune
to such things”.
Perhaps Paul’s crisis was quite short-lived, but whether
that was the case or not, it was certainly of serious intensity: “far beyond
our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself”. The words “Paul”
and “despair” don’t exactly sit naturally together in the minds of most of us,
do they! All I can say is that, if a giant of the faith such as Paul can write
such a thing, let’s be careful not to dismiss the possibility of something
similar in our own lives - yes, even under the eye of our loving heavenly
Father.
Second, if this is right, let’s resist any temptation to
play the hero when things get hard.
One of the most impressive characteristics of Paul was his
openness about how much he needed the support of others: his true humility, in
fact. He frequently asks those who read his letters to pray for him; he has no
illusions about his dependence on his loyal friends and companions.
Some of us, I suspect, while we say all the right things
about how weak and needy we are, don’t really mean it; deep down we like to
think we are self-sufficient.
This may be the case especially if we are in some form of
Christian leadership. Yes, those we lead will expect – and rightly expect - from
us competence, faith and energy, but they know – or should know, and need to
learn it if they don’t! – that we are not spiritual supermen or women.
“Burnout” may not be a sin; but at the same time it’s no great advertisement
for the Christian life. Jesus, we are told, advised his disciples to “come with
me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31), a command we
are foolish to ignore.
What can we say about the Philippians verse – “I can do all
things through him who gives me strength”?
In essence, Paul is simply saying that he has no doubt
about his God-given strength when it comes to God-given service.
That word “God-given” is important. Preachers sometimes
hold out unrealistic hopes and stir up unrealistic expectations of miracles
pretty well every day of our lives. This can end up making Christians look
foolish and out of touch with reality – rather as if we are Popeye swallowing a
helping of spinach and suddenly displaying a whole new energy.
There’s a bit of me that hesitates to sound that warning –
I would hate to be guilty of dowsing true, sincere faith, even faith that might
be such as to “move mountains”. But, whether preachers or not, we need to look
reality right in the eye. If such a miraculous thing is to happen (as God grant
it may), let it be a surprise even to ourselves, thus confirming that the
strength really is from God and God alone.
So…. At first sight Paul might indeed seem to be
contradicting himself in these two passages. But his full story gives the lie
to that: rather, he had learned from hard experience that living a life of
Spirt-led service can turn out in practice to be complex and puzzling. Which,
of course[CS1] ,
is why, later, in 2 Corinthians 12:10, he can toss out another wonderful
paradox: ”… it’s precisely when I’m truly weak that I am in fact strong”.
Is that a truth we can put to the test and prove this very
day, even in the ordinary circumstances of our ordinary lives?
Father, we do sometimes find following you hard,
though we know that in comparison with many our way is actually quite easy.
Grow in us, we pray, the kind of faith Paul had, so that like him we may learn the
secret of being content in any and every situation. Amen.
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