ROLL WITH IT

If you came to our front door, you’d find a huge cardboard tube swathed in black plastic bags to keep it from disintegrating in the rain. Catch us on a sunny day with grandsons visiting, the protective bags off and the tube in the front yard, you’ll likely find the little guys crawling through it (enjoying its echo chamber), rolling inside it, one rolling/the other inside, straddling it—you name it. Who would guess that a construction form for a pillar (from a yard sale) could provide so much entertainment?

Okay, so their grandma is always thinking, and this time the phrase “roll with it” came to mind. The saying has several versions. In sports, we hear “roll with the punches” for how boxers shift their stance to avoid incoming strikes. Todd Beamer’s last known words on a soon-doomed airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, were “Let’s roll,” calling any to help him storm the cockpit which hijackers had commandeered.  But I’m going for the generic meaning of “roll with it,” which means to adapt to unexpected hardships.

Wow, could that also be a Biblical concept? I think of a verse I’ve often recalled as I faced a difficult or potentially impossible situation: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  This, alas, is a verse that some folks twist and distort to their expectations. It’s not claim to super powers or a guarantee that they’ll rise about the world’s common woes. Its context was Paul’s note of appreciation to this particular early church, which took up an offering for his “keep” while chained up in a prison in a foreign country. In his early life (particularly “before Christ”), Paul presumably had a comfortable living. That all changed when the Christ he once despised became the Christ he loved and served with all his being. Even in putrid First Century jails.

In other words, Paul looked around at his impossibilities and still said, “Let’s roll.”  Let’s still witness for Christ and let Him show us “the secret of being content in any and every situation,” comfortable, primitive or even what the world would call miserable (Philippians 4:12).

My grandsons enjoyed their short dizzy rides in the tube. They laughed over the echoes of their voices. This cheap little toy was a happy place for them.

But sometimes life is a tube with both ends closed off. It’s dark, the air is suffocating, and we don’t know how to get out. But God knows, and His “exit strategy” may surprise us and build our faith. I think Paul pointed to that as he composed the “close” to his letter to the Philippians. He thanked them again for their sacrificial “support” gift, reminding them that God was equally able to meet their needs:

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. (4:19)

Roll with life’s dizzy, bumpy, unknown journeys? Absolutely, if you know who’s in charge of things “on top”—the One Paul described in closing as “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 23).