Paul here shows a very human moment of recognizing that he faces needs that we would consider devastating and stressful. He writes about being shipwrecked, stoned, beaten, and persecuted in a hundred ways that I can’t relate to, yet he was content. Every single day, at least one incredibly inconvenient thing happens to me, and there is a drastic difference in my response depending on whether I have God at the front of my mind or if I have myself at the front of my mind. Do you have a reason to be stressed? Yes. We have many moments where we can reason with ourselves about why we are justified in living in that stress, and it clearly seeps out of us into how we treat others and even how we treat ourselves.
Paul seems to have found the secret ingredient to the best recipe for being content. That ingredient is so simple, but I need the reminder today that I deeply need Jesus on this Wednesday. I will deeply need Jesus on Thursday. I will deeply need Jesus on Friday. I could go on, but it’s one thing to say that and another to stop and reflect by asking myself, “It’s halfway through the day, have I expressed a deep need for Jesus?” When you realize where the breath in your lungs came from and where you go after they stop, suddenly, if that story is true, I would deeply want to know that God is my deepest relationship today.
When that deepest need is met, the other needs and desires that would normally stress us out become sweet moments of knowing you have a superhero right in front of you during a robbery. The situation may still be stressful, but you know you are not facing it alone. It’s so simple and yet so life-changing to know that God sees your stress today, the things that bring you joy today, and the things that matter to you. He deeply cares about those things and wants to show up in the midst of them.