Daily Manna · Day 12 · January 12
All Things
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
Picture two rooms. In the first, a man sits chained to a Roman soldier who guards him. He is writing a thank-you letter for a gift of money, because the church at Philippi was the only church that kept sending him help (4:15). In the second room, someone is sitting in a parked car outside a building, ten minutes early and not ready to go in yet.
Keep the distance between those rooms in mind. Paul is not describing your ordinary Tuesday, and pretending he is cheapens both. But look at how he defines "all things," because he does it in the sentence just before: "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." Being full is on the list right beside being hungry. So this verse is about having strength in either condition, whether things go well or badly. And the Greek word behind "strengtheneth" means to put strength into someone from outside them.
The two rooms are different in almost everything, but they agree in one thing. Neither person can produce what he needs by himself.
So here is the promise, said plainly. It does not guarantee how things will turn out. What it gives you is enough strength from Christ to stay faithful inside whatever happens, when you have plenty and when you have too little. And He gives that strength at the moment you need it, usually no sooner.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 12 is In Their Sight (Numbers 13:33).