Here Comes Trouble

"In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world." – Jesus

I’m still feeling great loss from my brother’s suicide back in January. The all-consuming, overwhelming, debilitating sadness has passed. What’s left is an ongoing, dull, residual pain and sadness that seems to lurk around the corners and hide in the darkness. I find myself continually replaying those tragic events that led up to my brother’s death. And although death is as much of a reality as life is, it still seems completely surreal at times and difficult to fully comprehend.

This past week I learned that one of my cousins has terminal brain cancer. He’s 47 years old with 3 kids and 2 grandkids. One of his daughters found him laying in his office, incoherent a few days ago. He was most likely there for 2 days before she found him.

He was immediately rushed to the emergency room. Within hours, they had discovered his brain was full of tumors. His brain cancer is so pervasive that he has been given just a couple of weeks to live.

This morning our pastor told us about a dear woman in our church who has been diagnosed with cancer as well. Her cancer has invaded all of her major organs and she too will likely die from this within just a few short weeks.

This weekend a young man was at football practice and was run over by a Gator utility vehicle. He is in the neuro trauma unit here in our town fighting for his life.

Life happens, doesn’t it? And when it happens, there really are no guarantees that the storms that rage and the tornadoes that wage war against our very lives, won’t hit us just as hard as they seem to hit others.

As a matter of fact, there ARE some guarantees in life. Jesus actually said, ”in this world you WILL have trouble.” He Himself warned His followers that they were not exempt from the trials and hardships in life.

But His warning also came with a promise. What is the promise, you ask? The promise is this – I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD! That’s right. In the face of excruciating pain and extraordinarily difficult circumstances, the promise we can cling to is that Jesus is bigger than all of that. As much as it feels like life has us pinned against the wall with its hand on our jugular, we can rest knowing that it’s really just the opposite. Jesus is the One who has pinned the circumstances of our lives up against the wall, and He is the One who has guaranteed the victory.

For me personally, it’s sometimes difficult to live that reality when life feels like I’m in the middle of a vortex that’s threatening to end me. So, even though I don’t understand much of what God is doing and I often times feel like my faith is pretty puny and pathetic, I am learning to just trust Him. I can’t always trace His hand, but I can certainly work on trusting His heart.

Truthfully, I get a bit uptight when I listen to the proponents of the prosperity gospel and they say I don’t have enough faith and that I just need to believe harder. And if I believe harder, than those “bad” things wouldn’t be happening to me.

When I hear all that crap and think about all the suffering just in the lives of those in my little world, I can’t help but think to myself “well then, what are all these people doing wrong? Would they be spending the night in their own beds tonight if they just had more faith?” I mean, can it really be that simple? OR is pain and suffering a natural part of life that should just be expected?

I fall into the later of those 2 categories. I read Scripture and it tells me that suffering, excruciating suffering and unbearable pain, is an integral part of life on planet earth and should be expected by both believers and unbelievers alike.

“God makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5.45

Scripture is full of references about personal pain and suffering. For instance – Romans 8.17, 1 Corinthians 12.26, 2 Corinthians 1.6, Philippians 1.29, 1 Peter 4.19, 1 Peter 5.10, Romans 5.3, 2 Timothy 1.8 and Colossians 1.24…just to name a few of the places in Scripture that make mention of the pain we are certain to face in this life.

Jesus plainly stated in John 16.33 that His followers WOULD have trouble. It WOULD find them. There was NO escaping the traumas and tragedies in life.

But, He also equipped His followers with an unshakable promise of hope and certainty. Jesus promised that no matter how big, how nasty, how painful, how invasive, how debilitating, how crippling our pain is, He is bigger. He isn’t only bigger, but He has conquered. His death and resurrection doesn’t exclude us from the excruciating pain in life, but instead attaches a promise to our pain that He is there with us in the midst of it and He hasn’t abandon us to the devises of the Enemy. Jesus Himself has conquered and overcome.

If trouble has come knocking on your door, don’t be naïve enough to think you just need to believe harder or trust more, and when you can do that, then the trouble will go away. It doesn’t work like that. What you can do when trouble comes after you is tighten down the hatches, be sure you’re buckled up, and trust that the Author and Perfector of your faith is working in you and around you and you are not alone.

He has indeed overcome.