Finding Strength in Christ Amid CrisisÖrnek

The Power of Christ in Us I checked in with our son, Stephen, via phone recently on how he and his family were weathering the onset of recent upheaval. I discovered that we were both experiencing a genuine contentment despite everything going on around us. When I say contentment I do not mean fake happiness or complacency. What I do mean is comforted and strengthened by the God of all comfort. Stephen and I reviewed what our family has faced during the last few years: his daughter’s cancer; our son, Michael's, death; and other family crises in this past year. We reflected on how we have experienced a strengthening amid each one that we can assuredly say has come from Christ Himself. So this pandemic, despite its efforts to take our hearts captive with foreboding, is for us one more event in which we want to and must trust God. Philippians 4:13 in the Amplified Bible says, > I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.] The events of the last few years were so devastating that unless I chose to trust God amid each one I would have fallen apart. I knew that if I did not fall on Christ I would be lost in the lonely cavern of grief and self-pity. In the verse above we are supplied with and called to a sufficiency that only “Christ in us” can give. We experience this sufficiency--or Christ's strength--as we abide in and fall on Him when we are traumatized.