Day 22

What happens to us is not nearly as important as what is happening in us.

‘I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.’ (PHILIPPIANS 4:12)

Paul didn’t write the Book of Philippians from a comfortable resort. He wrote from prison – most likely in Rome. Despite all the hardship and frustration, here was a man spending his best years locked behind a prison door. It is in this context that he shares that he learned to live with a sense of joy and contentedness no matter what his circumstances. He learned to be content. This is not a question of a congenial personality but of an outworking of his relationship with Christ. If the Christian life will work in a prison it will work anywhere, but conversely, if it will not work in a prison it will not work anywhere else either.

If Paul had to learn to be content, it is not instinctive. He learned it by being harrowed and hard pressed, imprisoned and persecuted; for it is there you discover how real the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ is. Our reference point cannot be our circumstances. Our reference point must be Christ. Paul was able to live in any circumstance, because Christ was his strength. When Christ is our strength, we’re ‘ready for anything’ (as the J B Philips paraphrase of the New Testament puts it), or R-F-A, as Dr. Alan Redpath used to say (Philippians 4:12). Through Christ we are ready when health fails, when we lose our job or when we face tragedies of many kinds. When Christ is our reference point our circumstances become secondary to the presence of Christ within.

Have you surrendered your present circumstances to God?