SUNDAY'S MESSAGE

Trouble redeemed

"[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

So often trouble is only a part of a painful growing process like a seed buried alive by a seemingly merciless fate under suffocating ground in a windowless grace, until in supreme agony it ruptures into new life! This death, burial, pain, is not trouble. It is the travail of new birth. "…unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain" (John 12:24).

When trouble breaks your heart and makes your knees buckle, and forces penitent tears from eyes sealed in prayer to Almighty God, then trouble may turn out to be the redeeming agony before new birth.

What kind of people do you think we would be if we never had any trouble? It is only when we lift heavy loads that we build hard muscles in body, mind, and soul.