Week 52—Wednesday Philippians 1:12-14
Week 52—WEDNESDAY
ADEQUACY—THE POWER TO MAKE
EVERYTHING CONTRIBUTE
Before I leave this matter of guidance, let me add this one incident out of thousands: When, after finishing college, I was faced with what to do with my life, I knelt before a chair, spread out a letter on the chair, and said, “Now, Lord, I’ve got to answer this letter from the Mission Board. It may settle my life work. I’m ready to go anywhere, at any time, to do anything, if you will let me know what it is. What is it?” The Inner Voice replied, “It is India.” I arose from my knees and said, “It is India.” It was settled. Fifty years later I knelt before a chair in that same room and thanked God for the guidance and for the years spent working out that guidance. It has turned out perfectly. God’s will, if accepted as “good,” will turn out “acceptable,” and finally “perfect.”
The fourth thing that Jesus Christ means to me is adequacy, the power to use everything that comes. I do not ask for special treatment, to be God’s spoiled child (though sometimes I wonder if I’m not) but to be able to take what comes, good, bad, and indifferent, and make something out of it. A blind man in our Ashram in India said, “The quintessence of Stanley Jones is his belief that you cannot merely bear everything that happens, but use it, to rescue out of everything some good.” But I was a long time learning that secret. After a period of fumbling it came as a revelation through the Scriptures: when you are delivered up before courts and magistrates “this will be a time for you to bear testimony” (Luke 21:13). The injustice that brought you before courts can be used for a testimony. The injustice becomes opportunity. In Jesus everything is opportunity. So I do not ask for special treatment, or for exemptions, I ask for adequacy to use what happens and make something out of it. Everything, literally everything, furthers those who follow Christ.
O Lord and Master, I thank you for your mastery of me, and through that mastery of me my power to master everything that happens. Mastered, I master. It is so simple and yet so effective. Am I grateful? Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I can bear everything, for I can use everything.