I Can Do All Things

Behind The Art - I Can Do

Plans

Though well attended, the Craft Show for me was very slow. Another exhibitor asked “How’s it going?” Ruefully, I commented that my calligraphy might as well be in Sanskrit, for all the interest it had attracted. 

I could read Paul’s words to the Philippians from where I sat (and sat, and sat), “I have learned to be content in all circumstances” he says. “I know what it is to be hungry and what it is to be full. I know what it is to be in need.” Then he concludes, triumphantly, if – to me – a bit surprisingly, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” “Well, if you can do all things,” I want to ask, “why are you hungry? and in need?” 

What he means, I suppose, is that he can do all things within the context of Christ’s will, Christ’s plan for him. The plan involves a banquet. OK. A week later there’s nothing to eat. OK. Contented, he moves through scarcity and abundance. A human plan, a practical plan would at least have focused on the resources to assure Paul three meals a day and adequate lodging, it might even have regularly set a little something aside for retirement. But Paul, unlike Mr. Henley, is not the master of his fate. When Paul says, so confidently, that he “can do all things . . .” he doesn’t even know what those things might be. Who could plan such a life? 

I continued to sit in my chair, feeling as tiny as my ambitions.