In This World You Will Have Trouble

One Sunday I made the mistake of teaching from John, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage—I have conquered the world,” John 16:33 NET.

Right after the closing prayer, one family went out into the sub-zero weather to find that they had left the van’s lights on and their battery was dead.  Another family discovered their four-year-old had gotten into their van, turned it on, and backed over a parking bumper.  The worship leader went home to find her husband gone with a note telling her he wanted a divorce.  That night the church’s hot-water heating pipes froze up and the parsonage’s furnace broke down.  A parishioner offered to thaw out the church’s pipes with a blowtorch and caught the building’s subflooring on fire.  Then things got worse!

The next Sunday, I promised never to speak on that passage again.

“Trouble” seems to be life’s default setting: flat tires, kidney stones, IRS audits . . . the list goes on and on.  So, I’m assuming you and I will be facing some trouble this week.  But Christ offers us “peace” and “overcoming” victory today as well.

That’s why Paul can write, “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed,” 2 Corinthians 4:7-9 NET.

So, have a “but not” week!  We will have trouble, but not defeat!

QUOTE: Life is difficult.  This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.  Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult.  Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.  ~ M. Scott Peck

Today’s devotion by James N. Watkins is reprinted by permission from www.jameswatkins.com [please make a hyperlink] copyright © 2009.  He is the author of fifteen books, including Squeezing Good Out of Bad, and over two thousand articles.  He has spoken across the United States as well as overseas.