Here comes trouble!

What is a hardship? What exactly does that mean? Most would define a hardship as a difficulty or an inconvenience – perhaps as something that causes us pain or grief. I guess one of the best ways to describe a hardship is to simply say ‘trouble’. Life is full of hardships. We like to pretend they don’t happen that often or, after experiencing one, that we probably won’t see another one for a long, long. But they do come – one after another. And when it comes to hardships, most of us find ourselves in one of two camps. Either we trick ourselves into thinking that WE are the ones that cause all the hardships (Camp one) or we pretend that its never our fault and if it weren’t for OTHER PEOPLE we’d never come face-to-face with another hardship (Camp two).
I think we forget about the third camp. There is a third camp, you know. Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) The third camp is simply to accept the fact that we will have hardships – we will have trouble. We have to face the fact, there is no way to avoid it – trouble, inconvenience, trials, and suffering will be a part of our life. Notice Jesus didn’t say, “… there may be trouble…”, “… hardship is a possibility…”, “… some people will have trouble…”, or “… if you have trouble…” What he said was, “In this world YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE…” Jesus certainly knew a little about trouble. One day he was Time’s Man of the Year and the next day he was headed to Calvary. He experienced great hardship yet he knew that he had overcome the evils of this world.
I don’t really know the advice to give. I don’t have the ‘magic-cure’ for the guilt, pain, anger, confusion and disappointment that life’s hardships bring us. All I know for sure is Jesus told us to “Take Heart”, because he had overcome the world. Right in the middle of that next pain, that next disappointment, that next hardship I’m going to try to focus on the words of our Lord when He said, “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”