Day 15

The secret Paul learned was not how to get God to take him out of his circumstances, but how to bring God into his circumstances. 

“Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice!”  —PHILIPPIANS 4:4

We might be forgiven for imagining Paul on a Mediterranean island having gone on another missionary journey, and sitting under the shade of a palm tree, toes dipped in the cooling water as he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and I will say it again, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) But we would be wrong. 

Paul is writing from prison, almost certainly in Rome. He’d been arrested in Jerusalem, and for his safety, sent to Caesarea where he spent two years awaiting trial. He was then sent to Rome and enroute his boat sank off the coast of Malta. He spent the winter months on the island of Malta, and when he finally arrived in Rome, he spent two more years either in prison or under house arrest. This is where the book of Acts abruptly ends and we don’t know what happened next.

 If we were in Philippi and a letter from Paul arrived after five years of imprisonment, we might well expect him to be a little uptight, anxious and even angry. But instead, he writes, “Rejoice,” and in case they think he wrote the wrong word down by mistake, he repeats it, “Again, I say rejoice!”

This is not a case of positive thinking, or trying to look on the bright side! This is Paul speaking out of a depth of experience of God. He later writes, “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. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:12-13)

The secret Paul learned was not how to get God to take him out of his circumstances, but how to bring God into his circumstances. That is a very different thing! So much of our praying is about God getting us out, when what we need is to bring God in. As Paul says, “I can live in any situation when Christ is my strength.” 

Have you learned that secret? You will know if you have when you have both the reasons and resources to rejoice in every situation.