Pricked by my starting point

You have heard the phrase, “I can do all things through Christ.” There’s a song, a poster, t-shirts, etc. It’s an inspiring tagline.

Here’s what I thought when I heard the phrase. If Christ can do all things for me, then he could do all things for himself, too. I assumed that Jesus’ experience was not subject to suspense or uncertainty. He never got into a jam.

Logically, I then wondered why I had so much anxiety and gridlock in my life if Christ could just bail me out like he did himself.

Either something was wrong with me or something was wrong with him.

I took a second look at the context of that phrase and was shocked by what I found.

What I understand now, I will try to explain with a picture of the phrase from the original Greek. The circled words below mean “all,” so there are three references to “all” in the context of the “can do” phrase.  When it says, “I can do all things,” the “all things” summarizes the preceding the sentence, which includes

• living in humble circumstances
• times of surplus resources
• having plenty of food
• going hungry
• times of surplus (repeated)
• going without

It’s easy to see Jesus’ experience without any friction, like he was just acting out a movie script that he had already read. Sure, he put in a fine performance, but where’s the suspense? Anybody can go hungry one day when they know there’s going to be a fine meal the next.