“The Power Beyond What Is Normal”

HOW much suffering can a Christian endure? Today, Christians around the world face poverty, family disruption, emotional trauma, sickness, wars, and persecution. Is it reasonable to expect them to keep integrity in spite of all of this? The apostle Paul said it was. He wrote: “For all things I have the strength by virtue of him who imparts power to me.”​—Philippians 4:13.

History has shown that strength from Jehovah really is sufficient for all things. For example, during the Nazi regime in Germany, Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered vicious persecution. Did they endure? The book Les Bibelforscher et le nazisme (The Bible Students and Nazism) says: “Despite all the beatings, threats, and bans, despite the public humiliations, the imprisonments and detention in concentration camps, Bible Students [Jehovah’s Witnesses] never allowed themselves to be ‘reeducated.’”

In concentration camps, the Witnesses were identified by small purple triangles on their sleeves and were singled out for special brutality. Did this break them? Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim noted that they “not only showed unusual heights of human dignity and moral behavior, but seemed protected against the same camp experience that soon destroyed persons considered very well integrated by my psychoanalytic friends and myself.”

Yes, they had ‘strength for all things.’ Why? because they relied on Jehovah. Paul said: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the power beyond what is normal may be God’s and not that out of ourselves.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) If you should meet up with a trialsome situation, look confidently to Jehovah for help. Strengthened by the power beyond what is normal that he provides, you will be able to endure.​—Luke 11:13.