The Answer Outside the Square

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. — 2 Corinthians 2:14

Into the Word

Second Corinthians comes out of a strained relationship. Paul had started the church in Corinth, but things between him and the believers there had grown painful, and he had written them a hard letter “with many tears” (2 Cor. 2:4). He sent Titus to Corinth and waited for him to come back with news of how they had taken it.

While he waited, Paul went to the port city of Troas to preach, and the Lord opened a door for the gospel there. Still, he could not rest. Titus had not come, and Paul did not know what was happening in Corinth, so he left Troas and crossed over to Macedonia to find him (2 Cor. 2:12–13).

Titus did eventually arrive with good news, but Paul does not tell that part until chapter 7. Here, in the middle of recalling those anxious days, he breaks off the story and gives thanks.

Paul describes God as the One who “in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession” (2 Cor. 2:14). In Paul’s world, a triumph was the parade Rome gave a victorious general, and scholars suggest the incense burned along the route may lie behind his next image, the “fragrance” that spreads everywhere. The victory in this verse belongs to God. We share in it by being in Christ, and Paul says it happens “always,” in an uneasy week at Troas as much as in the easy ones.

The View from Above

Anyone who has walked a corn maze in the fall knows the feeling. The stalks rise above our heads, every path looks like the last one, and after twenty minutes we are back at the same turn. Some mazes have a lookout platform, and someone standing up there can see the whole layout at a glance. The way out we could not find on the ground is plain from above.

Many of our hardest problems are like that. From where we stand, we can’t see a way through, but God sees the whole of it. He says through Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
— Isa. 55:8–9

This is why Paul places the victory in Christ and not in us. The wise thing is to bring the problem to the One who sees it from above, and to keep asking.

The Square No One Drew

An old puzzle shows how this works. Nine dots sit in a grid, three rows of three. The task is to connect all nine with four straight lines without lifting the pen. Most people try for a long time and fail, because they keep every line inside the square the dots seem to form. The puzzle never asked for that. The answer comes only when the lines run past the edge.

We do something similar with our troubles. We draw a square around them: this is my problem, so I have to solve it, with my strength, in my way. When we treat what we face as something that belongs to Christ and look for His way through it, we find answers that were never available inside the lines we drew ourselves.

What the Trouble Can Leave Behind

Problems are not only bad news. People sometimes say that a body which fights off a cold comes through it a little stronger. Something like that happens in the life of faith. A problem we walk through in Christ often becomes a turning point, the place where we grow and learn what we could not have learned another way.

Paul writes that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Part of that newness is a new way of thinking. Most of us carry old habits of turning inward and shrinking every problem down to the size of our own resources. When trouble comes, we can ask how the Lord would walk through it. We bring that question to Him in prayer. We look for His answer as we read and turn over His Word, and the Holy Spirit brings to mind what we need, sometimes a verse we read weeks ago, sometimes a quiet conviction about what to do next. Wisdom often comes a little at a time.

Before We Move On

When Paul remembered Troas, he did not wait to reach the happy ending before giving thanks. In the middle of that unsettled memory, he looked past the square of his own worry and thanked the God who leads His people in Christ’s victory and spreads the fragrance of Christ through them. A life lived only inside ourselves feels cramped. In Christ, we can breathe again, and the people around us can sense Him through us.

Perhaps there is a square we have drawn around something this week. What would it look like to let the line run past the edge?

The answer was never inside the square. It is in Christ, where God always leads us in triumph

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Original source: The Answer Outside the Square — Bible Portal Insights

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