I can do all of this? Really??????

I live in the Hawkeye state, otherwise known as Iowa. Even I, who cares very little for sports, have heard of the prowess of the female American basketball player Caitlin Clark. It’s hard not to miss it, since her name has been mentioned a great deal this year at both the collegiate and the professional basketball level. She’s broken records. She’s won awards. She’s garnering attention for herself and for the sport of women’s basketball in general.

And she didn’t do this all alone.

Yes, she’s worked hard to get where she is. But she couldn’t do it alone. No one person wins games solo. Even Caitlin Clark has had teammates who have supported her along the way and coaches that have pushed her. She’s had fans bolstering her. She’s had family who have come along side her. From practices and training to games, she’s done it with an entire army that have helped her to get to where she is, as it should be. She could do all of this because she had the strength and courage and support that comes from the community around her, that community that rallied her, supported her, challenged her, pushed her to become the record-breaking, award-winning powerhouse that she is today.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me

~ Philippians 4:13, NKJV

Go anywhere where Christians congregate and this verse is prominent. It is tattooed on bodies, decorates wall art and car stickers, is sung in songs. It’s used to highlight that Christians can do the extreme – climb that mountain, skydive, catch the biggest wave, soar to the highest heights, win that big game. But it’s not a mantra of self-empowerment that will allow us to conquer the impossible. It’s not Rob Schneider’s character in every Adam Sandler movie shouting “You can do it!” to anything and everything we set our minds to. It’s not a verse that feeds our self-reliance, that all we need is Christ and we can do everything. We aren’t Superman, even if we tried to be, and Christ isn’t a fairy godmother who will give us what we want when we want it.

The book of Philippians was one I studied long ago, when I was a young teenager in the confirmation class at the Presbyterian church I grew up in back in the Golden State (otherwise known as California). From my tender teenage years, I learned that the letter was written while Paul was in chains. He’s not doing the impossible or the extreme. Far from it. He is in prison with no hope of release. But if one were to read the context of this verse, one would discover that Paul’s not wishing to a miracle to save him. He says he has everything he needs and that he can endure what has become his life. He has contentment because he has been strengthened throughout all of what he is going through because he still has his faith that gives him strength, but also because he had been supported by those to whom he wrote his letter.

I’m no Biblical scholar. But I do pay attention to how words are written because of my training as a writer. It’s fitting that instead of translating the Greek word into “all things,” the NIV version translates it “all this through him who gives me strength.”

All of this. The good. The bad. The wonderful. The ugly. The extreme. The mundane.

And it’s not just because we have what some would call a mystical and made up man in the sky to help us. We also have a community, just like Caitlin Clark, who surround us and support us and cheer us on no matter what. We each cultivate that tribe of people, who remind us of our story and help us to endure whatever life throws at us. It is through Christ we are strengthened, but without having our needs met in ways the community can provide, we are still nothing. And that’s the magic, the contentment that helps us to have peace, love, hope, and joy in this moment, no matter what may imprison us.

“The nature of true Christian sympathy is not only to feel concern for
our friends in their troubles, but to do what we can to help them.”

~ Matthew Henry

Find your tribe, dear friends. We don’t need to try to go it alone.

Likewise, be the tribe for those who need it, just as the church in Philippi was Paul’s support to endure.

Stay magical.

Write your own story.

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