I Can Do All Things

Sometimes life just gets rough. It hits you in the face and then kicks you once it's knocked you to the ground. Even the little things can feel like big things when they're piled on top of each other, one after the other. Or it could be a "big thing" you're facing--or more than one--that feels insurmountable, unbearable. You wonder if you have the strength to face it. You look for friends, but you realize, whether you have friends around you that are able to support you or not, you are, in the end...alone.

Well, not completely alone. It's in those moments that God sometimes seems to show Himself to us the most clearly or powerfully. You might not feel as if you can make it through on your own strength, but you can make it in God's.

That's why Paul's verse, Philippians 4:13, is such a great reminder. He states, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Not certain things, under certain conditions. Christ's strength is limitless and it's always there for His children to draw on. The sad thing is that so often we try to handle life's problems, big and small, with our own strength. We think, "That's great you're here, God, but I've got this one," or maybe we just get so wrapped up in our difficulties we forget to hand them to Him. We spend all our energy wrestling and fretting over the struggles rather than resting in Him.

Of course this verse doesn't mean that life won't ever drain our energy or get difficult. It is a reminder, though, that perhaps, after all, we are strongest when all of our strength is drained. That is when we rely on Jesus' strength even more to help us through the difficulties we are facing. It's when, if we let Him, He wraps us in His loving embrace and carries us through the night until, once again, we're standing under the light of a new morning, full of hope and peace and joy we thought we wouldn't feel again.