Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Notice how it says “who strengthens me”. This only happens through trials and tribulations. You can’t be “strengthened” by wishing it so or waiting for Christ to make it so. This strengthening comes through trial and error, repetitiveness, practice and victory.

The Bible mentions strength given to quicken someone’s body, to aid them to withstand their immediate need. But that isn’t the same strength that is needed to “do all things”. It has taken me time to get this through my head. It has to do with trust and faith. Too often I try to “fix” my own problems only to make them even worse.

The failure that is me is those things that I keep messing up. The Israelites had to keep going around that mountain because they weren’t prepared, strengthened, to enter the promise land in their present condition. They witnessed with their own eyes the powerful and wonderful miracles that God did for them to bring them out of Egypt but forgot about them every time they complained. So it took them forty years to travel eleven miles to get to the promise land.

You have to trust God that if He brought you to it that He’ll bring you through it! It’s like something that I read a while ago… “God, why did you take me into deeper waters when I struggle in shallow waters? Because your enemies can’t swim!” God is made strong in my weaknesses!

To be strengthened is to become prepared. Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” God brings people into our lives for us to help and bless or for them to help and bless us. Sometimes those who we struggle with are put in our lives as our trial and tribulations. We may need to learn some lesson from them by how we help and bless them. They may be the strengthening that you need.

I know that I need to be reminded of who Jesus is in me. “Greater is He that is within you then he that is in the world.” When I mess up and sin the worse thing that I can do is to start believing the lies of the evil one. His plan is to keep me stuck in my past by telling me what a failure I am. If you make the mistake of believing that lie then you allow your sin to be repeated over and over in your life because “you are a failure”.

It is at those times that I must remind myself of who I am and who I belong to. I am not my own for I have been bought with a price, the blood of Jesus. When the accuser starts in with his lies and accusations, I remind myself that I was chosen for this time and place before time began. That I am not here to fail. I am not here to be stuck in my past. I am not here for the temptations, evil schemes and plans of the evil one or the sins that attack me. I am here to influence my surroundings for God’s kingdom everywhere I go every day.

My past does not dictate my future. My friends, family, job, co-workers, school or any organizations I belong to does not dictate my destiny. For I am a child of the King of kings! I am here to fulfill God’s will and plan for my life. “Because you are I am!”