Between the Two Ponds
One passage. One idea. A few quiet minutes. Short devotional readings for people being formed by grace, written from a small chair beside still water in Falcon, Colorado.
Pull one up. Read slowly. There is no hurry here.
Two Sides of the Same Gift
Read that verse again slowly, because there is a word in it that most of us skip.
"For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake." (Philippians 1:29)
Read the verse slowly, because there is a word in it most of us skip. Granted. It has been granted to you, given to you as a gift. And what has been given? Two things, joined in the same sentence and handed over in the same act: not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.
We have no trouble with the first half. Faith is a gift, we can preach that in our sleep. By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. But watch what Paul has done. He has taken faith and taken suffering, laid them side by side, and called them both a gift. They are two sides of one coin.
Consider what that means. A coin has a head and a tail. It can land either way up and it is still the same coin, still worth the same, and no one holds one up and says, this one landed tails, so it is worth less. Whether you are believing or whether you are suffering, you are holding the same coin. It is all one life of faith, all the same gift, given by the same hand.
This is not said lightly or from a comfortable chair. But it changes the question we bring to God in the dark. We are forever asking why the coin landed the way it did, as though suffering were proof the gift had been taken back. It was not. It is still the coin he gave you, still faith, still grace, still his. Stop demanding to know why it fell as it did, turn it over in your hand, and see that it is the same gift on both sides.