The little boy stood on the mound in the middle of the baseball field all alone.
Ball one. Ball two. Ball three. Walk.
Ball one. Ball two. Ball three. Walk.
Sometime after the third walk, he started to cry and look to me for help.
I wanted to yank him off the field and buy him an ice cream cone…anything to make him stop hurting, but I controlled myself. Instead of making a spectacle, I pressed my face up against the fence and yelled, “ALL THINGS!” He heard me. And he knew exactly what I meant. I saw the recognition cross his face, and as it did, watched his little shoulders straighten and chin lift. He wiped tears from his cheeks, prepared for the next pitch, and…walked another player with all the confidence and poise he could muster.
All Things.
Both of my sons have loved and played baseball over the years, and both have pitched at various times in their careers. I’m convinced there’s not a more stressful athletic position than that of pitcher. A good pitcher (or a bad one) has the ability to make or break the game all by himself, regardless of how good his team is. I watch MLB pitchers and have no idea how they don’t just break down and cry on the mound. That day, as my son pitched his heart out, badly, I could see him struggling mentally. They say the mental game is what separates the elite athletes from the excellent ones, so it’s something we’ve worked on all their lives, and one of the ways we’ve done it is by using Philippians 4:13.
You see it on t-shirts, necklaces, stickers, and hats…these words of Paul: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Many well-meaning believers use it as a mantra of positive thinking—“I can achieve anything I want to because Jesus gives me strength!”—but I think we get it wrong when we use it this way. In context, we find a Paul that is sharing from his own experience of being brought low for the sake of Christ. In the verses just before, he says, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13).
Throughout his ministry, Paul faced trials of many kinds. He was beaten, whipped, humiliated, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and much, much more. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t necessarily sound like the kind of Christianity I’d like to sign up for. It certainly doesn’t fit the “positive affirmations” culture we currently live in. The Christian life is filled with mountaintop experiences and times when everything seems to be going our way. But it is also filled with valleys, pits of despair, and times when we work and work and work only to get nothing noticeable in return. It’s both, and that’s the truth. Paul knew it, and he found the secret of being content through it all.
When I yelled, “ALL THINGS!” to my son on the mound that day, I wasn’t trying to remind him that he could do it. I wasn’t asking him to dig deep in the well of his own strength, and I wasn’t trying to tell him I believed in his ability to throw a strike. That day, he couldn’t (although he has plenty of times since). I was reminding him that his identity wasn’t tied to an outcome, and that he had an opportunity to represent Jesus well even when things weren’t going his way. THAT, I think, is the heart of Philippians 4:13.
Our children are going to face trials of many kinds. They’re going to win, and they’re going to lose. They’re going to work hard at things and not get what they worked for. This is life. As they follow Christ, they’re going to meet people who help them and people who hinder them. And while they might not experience the same kinds of ups and downs Paul did, they will have the same opportunity to walk through them all relying on Christ’s strength instead of their own.
It isn’t about winning or losing. It isn’t about strikes versus walks. Life in Christ isn’t about us or our children, at all. It’s about following God faithfully, and allowing the hard places of life to shape us into something He can use. Philippians 4:13 is a wonderful verse to lean on in our parenting, but let’s teach our kids the true meaning behind it: they can be exactly who God calls them to be, no matter what life throws their way.
Let’s Pray.
Father, my heart wants to protect my children from life’s hard things. I want them to believe they can achieve anything they dream of, but I know that in reality, the very best dreams for them are Yours. Help me teach them to root their identity in You, not in what they can accomplish, so that when the day comes that they fail, they won’t fall. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
