Philippians 2:16: He Left the Result With Them

as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.

Philippians 2:16 (NIV)

He Left the Result With Them

Monday morning at the park, and the merry-go-round is going around with nothing on it. An older man has his shoulder into the rail, walking it up to speed the way you’d start a flywheel, and then he steps back and lets it run. It turns a dozen times before it slows. He watches the whole thing, then puts his shoulder back on the rail.

A boy about four is on the bench with a granola bar, in no hurry. The grandfather isn’t waiting on him. He’s testing the bearing. It squealed all last summer, it got greased in April, and he wants to know what the thing gives back now.

The Philippians are a long way from Paul, and he asks them to hold firmly to the word of life. Then he ties his own outcome to theirs. On the day of Christ, he says, he’ll be able to boast that he “did not run or labor in vain,” and they’re the reason it will be true, still gripping the word of life long after he’s out of the picture.

He had already told them that God works in them to will and to act. Knowing that, he puts the worth of his own running inside them anyway and leaves it there, where he can’t reach it. So his work gets finished in other people, later, out of his sight, and he writes about it like a man who has made his peace with that. Who would have to keep going for your years to have amounted to what you hoped?

The grandfather walks it up to speed one more time and steps off, and the boy on the bench says, “Again.” “In a minute,” the old man says, and he’s already checking his watch, because Monday has other things in it. Behind the two of them the empty merry-go-round turns twice more and slows down. Who’s going to be walking that rail up to speed when the boy is old enough to check his watch?