My Love/Hate Relationship with a Bible Verse

One of my favorite verses is Philippians 4:13.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I love this verse. I meditate on it frequently. But I also hate this verse. I have a tendency to only read and meditate on part of it. And that gets me into all sorts of trouble. If I focus only on the first part, I can do all things, well, just read my last post and you'll see what happens! That's what happens when we take verses out of context. We miss the point. The point of this verse isn't doing everything and asking God to bless our doing. We need to rely fully and wholly on Christ first. He is the one who gives us strength. 

When the entire verse is read in context, the meaning becomes so much clearer. Paul is talking about contentment. About making the decision to be content in all circumstances. When full or when hungry, when we have plenty or if we're in need. The true meaning of I can do is I can be strong or I have the strength to overcome.  I find the strength in Christ when I give him my life. He tells us that His yoke is good (the translation says "easy", but the Greek really means "virtuous" or "good"). 

It's when I add to His yoke that life gets crazy and I start to feel overwhelmed. It's when I start focusing on myself that I might start to feel depressed. If I get my priorities straight, everything falls into place. It may not be easy as we define things, but He never told us it would be. He told us to follow him. And to be content in all circumstances. Even if those circumstances keep me running from sun-up to sun-down. Even if those circumstances aren't always what I'd like. So I'm going to try harder to get things in the right order. Jesus gives me strength, and with His strength, I can be strong.

What was I thinking?

I have reason to question my sanity. This has been a week. I mean a WEEK. I don't even remember part of it, that's how crazy it's been. Let me try to recap the main events.

• Monday - Labor Day. Made Overnight French Toast (that was easy-ish). I honestly don't remember what we did for most of the day, but Monday night we had friends over to celebrate Joshua's 18th birthday with pie and ice cream.
• Tuesday - Joshua's 18th birthday! Good thing we celebrated on Monday, because the little ones were CRANKY. Schoolwork, then took Maddie to the doctor for her foot (she didn't know what she did, but it hurt pretty bad and icing, heating, wrapping and soaking wasn't helping). Turns out she has plantar fasciitis. Nice. Josh went to a friend's field hockey game then out to dinner. I took Zach and Maddie to soccer practice (Maddie took it "easy" and only walked the laps instead of running - did I mention how tough that girl is?), then home, showers, grade school work, bed.
• Wednesday - Thought I had the day planned out, but a last minute cancellation changed things. It made it easier, but still changed things. School in the morning, then drive to town to drop Josh off at hubby's work to take hubby's car to soccer practice, then haircut appointment for me, drive to another town to get some school books for Josh, then back to town for an oil change, then off to buy soccer items for Zach and Maddie, then to pick hubby up from work since Josh had his car, then home, dinner, review school work, bed.
• Thursday - Everyone up early. Josh drives to school for chapel, yearbook and a soccer game. The rest of us drive hubby to work then come home for schoolwork, laundry, bake bread, make dinner, soccer practice, clean up dinner, feed goats, do dishes, showers, review school work, wait for hubby to come home, wait for Josh to come home (celebrate his team's win), watch Vikings lose to New Orleans (Grrrr!), bed.
• Friday - Katie's 22nd birthday!! (Am I really that old?) school work, drive to town to pick hubby up to take him to dentist appointment because Josh needs to drive to soccer practice at the same time then go to youth group, arrive late to appointment because of construction on the way, after appointment go to grocery store, then home, dinner, crash.

Don't forget that there were still diapers to change, a baby to nurse, chickens to feed, eggs to gather, goats to bottle feed twice a day, laundry to do, dishes to wash....

Oh, you were still wondering why I am questioning my sanity? Because in the middle of all this, I decided to use some of our surplus garden tomatoes to make homemade ketchup. From scratch. Yes, I can buy it by the gallon for less than $5, but my hubby likes homemade. So it took me 3 days because I didn't have enough time to make it all at once, and in the end I ended up with not quite 2 pints of ketchup. It's almost half gone already. Why do I do these things??