Trials, Troubles and Tribulations. What Do You Do?

Imagine you are bright, scholarly, a top student in your high school, planning a possible college career at Yale. Then ‘it’ happens.

At a neighborhood ice hockey game, one of the players on the opposing team ‘accidentally’ swings a stick at you and hits you in the face, causing terrible damage. Did I mention that the player who hit you with the bat ends up becoming a mass murderer? And, after losing your top teeth and – experiencing excruciating pain, you find out your mother is dying of a chronic disease and requires constant care-giving. The usual, right?

“The race is not to the swift,

Nor the battle to the strong….

But time and chance happen to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11

Life happens. Time and chance happen. You and I live amidst a chaotic world, a sin filled world.

Sometimes trials, tribulations and troubles will hit us.

The story above is the true story of Wilbur Wright, one of the two brothers who invented the airplane (story facts are taken from David McCullough’s most recent book “The Wright Brothers”). His life was altered; his plans were changed by an unexpected hit in life.

How has your own life been hit by a blow, a change, or a hardship?

The hit Wilbur Wright took changed the direction of his life and set his course and his energies towards what would be his life’s achievement – mastering flight.

“No bird soars in a calm.” Wilbur Wright

The physical pain he experienced, the loss of health, and his mother’s needs caused him to become a bit of a recluse, and stay at home for the next three years caring for his mother. It was during this time that he began extensive reading about birds and their flight, and about current inventors seeking methods to fly.

Oh, how I want a calm and trouble-free life.

I’d like to believe that my faith and the shield of faith that is part of God’s armor will be a protection against trouble – an invisible shield keeping me from hardships, heart-aches, and pains. Unfortunately, I don’t believe Christians are given a trouble-free life insurance policy.

Creation and mankind (us!) are all subject to frustration on earth.

“For the creation was subjected to frustration….

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves …groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we are saved..” Rom 8:20-24

Sometimes, though as we see with Wilbur Wright, pain or trouble can result in a purpose.

Another example of pain – or trouble – with purpose – is childbirth. The important process of moving baby from womb to world requires straining. The muscular work – the contracting, the pull of muscles working to propel and expel the tiny infant along the God-ordained path to life – is a struggle. It hurts. It can’t be avoided. It is the only natural way out!

As an RN, I would often advise pregnant women to lean in to their bodies during labor. Not to fight. To visualize the end. To focus their mind and body outside themselves – on a point or a picture that gives them positive strength.

Maybe you and I need a new mindset regarding troubles. Perhaps a mindset of leaning in.

Recognize God can use trouble for His purposes in our lives.

In earlier post of “Making Friends With Your Problems” (post) I spoke of taking a mindset of looking for God – ‘in’ – and through the difficulty, rather than struggling to get out of the situation. Trials, troubles, and temptations are a piece of life God uses. Recognize that God stands with us in the midst of them, and God can bring deliverance through them.

Allow God room to birth in us new life – character and hope – as we move through our difficulties.

Deliverance, like answers to prayer, doesn’t always look like what we expect. We want the easy road, the problem-free route – the quick solution or answer.

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

II Corinthians 4:17,18

Let’s refocus our eyes. Set them on God, not our troubles. A different kind of approach to problems – God amidst us – God with us – in troubles.

Let’s invite God – “in” – to our troubles. Let’s allow God room to birth in us life, purpose, and hope as we move through our troubles.

Linking up with Holley Gerth’s CoffeeformyHeart, Jennifer Dukes Lee TellHisStory, Thought Provoking Thursdays, PurposefulFaith RaRALinkUp, Blessing Counters Link Up