John 16:33
Jesus Said You Will Have Troubles in This World
33 “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.”
Jesus teaches us that in Him we will have peace in this world...But in this world we will have troubles...But we can take heart because He has overcome this world...
So in this world we will have troubles...And many times the troubles are pain and suffering...And these types of troubles get our attention...But surrounding this teaching of Jesus about troubles are Great Hope...In Him we can find peace...And we can look at His resurrection and believe that He has overcome this world...
But chronic pain and suffering is usually what gets our immediate attention...Sometimes chronic pain and suffering takes us to deep and dark places quickly...Things get turned upside down very quickly...Your life can be disrupted...Pain and suffering may try to take us to places we do not want to go...But God is there watching us...God is near, even though the pain is telling us that we are alone...But if our faith is there we might believe that God is somewhere near and trying to help us, even though the pain and suffering is trying to take us somewhere else...
Dustin Shramek writes about grieving and says this, “Experiencing grief and pain is like falling off a cliff...Everything has been turned upside down, and we are no longer in control...As we fall, we see one and only one tree that is growing out from the rock face...So we grab hold of it and cling to it with all our might...This tree is our Holy God...He alone can keep us from falling headfirst to our doom...There simply aren’t any other trees to grab...So we cling to this tree (the Holy God) with all our might...But what we didn’t realize is that when we fell and grabbed the tree our arm actually became entangled in the branches, so that in reality, the tree is holding us...We hold on to keep from falling, but what we don’t realize is that we can’t fall because the tree has us...We are safe...God, in his holiness, is keeping us and showing mercy to us...We may not be aware of it, but it is true...He is with us even in the deepest and darkest pit.”...