You Will Have Trouble

In the New Testament, followers of Jesus are specifically warned, twice, that we will have trouble.

The first is from Jesus, spoken to His disciples on the night before He died.  He'd already told them that He would soon suffer, be killed, and rise, words which made them anxious enough.  But then He added that they, too, would have trouble in this world, no doubt causing them to imagine way worse than the kind of trouble He'd already predicted they would have.  And then, sort of like the overly-confident Mother who assures a child that the shot he will receive won't hurt all that much, Jesus adds, "Take heart!  I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).  I wonder if the disciples were reassured by this.

And yet, of course, Jesus' Words were and are true.  He has overcome the world, and its troubles, not only in His having won the victory over the world's inheritance of sin, evil, and death, but also in His having transformed the very nature of the "trouble" of this world.

For the second warning about trouble comes from St. Paul, when he advises, "those who marry will have trouble", using the same word that John used for "trouble".  And, no doubt, married people know about the trouble that comes from having to live that closely with another human being.  It's trouble, but, in Christ, it becomes good trouble.  The trouble the enemy would use to break up a marriage, God can use to strengthen and deepen it.  The trouble that the world uses to deter believers can be used by God to give us a holy tenacity.  Joseph in Egypt testifies to this when he says to his brothers, "What you intended for evil, God used for good" (Genesis 50:20).

So, dear friends, since you and I will have trouble, let's invite Jesus into it, so that we can indeed take heart, knowing that He has overcome the world, and its troubles, as we see them used by Him for good.