Learned By Experience

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Php 4:13 AV)

 

This verse is often quoted and within the proper context.  We often see it under current conditions of trial or challenge.  We quote that verse as a promise that no matter what the LORD would have us do, with the strength of Christ, the impossible becomes possible.  And rightly so.  However, one must ask the question:  How did Paul come upon this knowledge?  How is it he can make the statement above with such faith and conviction so as to motivate the rest of us to trust when trust wanes thin?  It is helpful to remember when it was in the life and ministry of Paul which found him penning these words.  The book of Philippians is one of the prison books.  That is, Paul wrote this letter while under house arrest by the order of Caesar.  Paul was run out of Jerusalem and his life was needlessly and illegally threatened by Orthodox Jews who rejected the gospel of Christ.  He had no other option than to plead Caesar.  However, his background to this verse goes a lot deeper than the most recent of his experiences.  He relates a bit of that in the previous verse.  Paul describes his life’s experiences in greater detail in 2Cor.10:22-28.  It is quite an exhaustive list of the hardest of times Paul lived through.  So, when he states the truth above, it is not merely a truth known from the word of God and taken at face value.  The strength of the verse above is the many tests God put Paul through to teach him he can do all things that are asked of him because of the strength of Christ!  In other words, the truth of the above verse is learned the hard way.  By the experiences of life.

I have related before the story of building a raft for the Engineering Merit badge.   It was one of the required merit badges for Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts.  Engineering merit badge was one of those courses we could take during our week-long summer camping trip.  The project undertaken was to build a raft that could hold the entire class and sail it down the lake into the beach for all the camp to see.  So, it had to be buoyant enough to carry about eight boys and the instructor.  No nails or screws were allowed.  We could only use rope.  The instructor told us at the beginning of the week we would tie so many lashes and cut and trim so much lumber that our blisters would get blisters.  He was right.  The class lasted two hours a day.  However, the raft had to get down in order to earn the merit badge, so we were allowed to come during our free time to work on the project.  We had to sign the lash we tied and if it came undone, we were docked points.  When Friday came around and the raft was nearing completion, our hands were so blistered and cramped we didn’t think we could finish.  However, the instructor get in there and helped and encouraged us to press on.  Tying these logs to plastic 55-gallon drums was the preferred engineering solution to all the wait we had to carry.  We devised a sail from plastic sheeting and a mast from a tree.  We didn’t think about how to get this floating mass of lumber to the water.  Our instructor knew, but we had to figure it out.  Carrying it was impossible.  Too heavy for eight young fourteen-year-olds.  There it was.  Beautiful work of boyhood engineering.  But with one major problem.  It was too far from the water’s edge.  We were put in a situation all week long where we were tasked with a project of which we had little knowledge.  It was beyond our ability.  We didn’t know how to lash correctly.  We didn’t know how to make a rudder.  We didn’t know how to catch the wind.  And we certainly didn’t know how to get this monstrosity to the water over one hundred feet of dry ground.  With the instructor's guidance by asking clever questions, we came up with the solution of laying logs on the ground and using them as rollers.  We couldn’t complete this project on our own.  But we could with the instructor’s input.  We learned that by ourselves, the project was impossible.  Yet, with the help of a guide, the impossible became possible.

The point is clear.  Paul could not have written the above verse with any amount of conviction unless he lived what he preached.  The only way he could do that was to allow the LORD to put him in a situation or situations where this truth had to be learned by life’s experiences.  If we claim the promise of the verse above, we do so knowing God had strengthened us before.  We have learned that through the hardest times of life, God showed Himself faithful and strong.  How often do we forget what we have learned when faced with a new and more difficult challenge.  We forget the lessons of the past too quickly.  We forget the LORD gave us just what we needed in order to endure the roughest times of life.  We are faced with a new and deeper trial and forget the trials of the past seemed just as deep way back when.  We forget we came to the end of ourselves and doubted God’s ability.  Now, faced with the deepest waters of life, we are once again asked to trust Him to be our strength.  Paul knew this.  Paul lived this.  This is why Paul preached this.