When I was a teenager, it was very popular to publish books that listed off the promises of Scripture. The idea was to have a list ready at your fingertips for encouragement when days were rough and you needed a pick-me-up.
Of course the promises of God have shored me up as I live out life in this crazy-mixed-up world where right is wrong and wrong is right; it’s always good to have words of hope to lift up my mind and heart.
But in all of those lists of popular and oft-quoted promises, I’ve never seen John 16:33. In the Upper Room at the beginning of His final week, Jesus promises His disciples: in this world you will have tribulation or trouble. You will have trouble. That’s a promise, friends; Jesus is saying we can count on it.
Are you encouraged yet? Probably not.
You see, no one wants to draw encouragement from the promise that we will have trouble, but if all we do is try to skip to the next part of Jesus’ statement, “take heart; I have overcome the world”, then we will find ourselves frustrated and dissatisfied. The one doesn’t really make sense without the other; the world doesn’t make sense without both halves of Jesus’ statement either.
I can count on the fact that trouble will come, so when that diagnosis comes pouring forth from the doctor’s mouth while I feel like I’m in a surreal wind tunnel, trying to absorb the shock; or when that person who I thought was a friend betrays me; or when that phone call comes telling of that death…then, then I can cling to that not-oft-quoted promise: in this world you will have trouble.
Ah, a sigh comes. Ok, this is normal in this sinful world. At least I know I’m not alone, but how do I keep going here now knowing this? Because, God’s got this.
Jesus assures His disciples in the words leading up to this promise in the previous verses of chapter sixteen. He says: you will all mourn soon. Your trouble is coming, and it will keep coming, but don’t fear, joy is coming, too. He was trying to teach them through this promise that overcoming means nothing if there is nothing to overcome. When He conquered death for us, He showed us how being citizens of heaven gives us strength to make it through our sojourn on this foreign soil of earth.
Experiencing trouble on this earth is what makes the promise of overcoming it by His Spirit that much more powerful and wonderful.
As we live out our short journey in this world that still bears the curse of sin and death, we can hold to the promise of trouble here, knowing that this is not the end. Our troubles can reveal God’s glory in greater brightness, and they remind us that this world is not where we make our permanent home.
Take heart from Jesus’ promise that you will have trouble. He’s got a bigger plan that you can see, and it’s out of this world and into the next where tribulation will be forgotten and full victory is won.
Taking it Further: In what troubling places do you need God’s overcoming grace today? How can thinking of your trials in light of what is to come ease the load?
