Life Is Hard
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and welcome to “Joni and Friends”.
You know, sometimes life seems like, I don’t know, one long, unending string of trials. No sooner is one problem behind you, then another crops up, right? So, what words of encouragement does the Word of God have for us? Well, listen to these uplifting words by the apostle Paul who says in First Thessalonians Chapter 3, “We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we were destined for them.”
I’m sorry, but that last sentence just has to make you laugh. It’s like Paul is stating an obvious fact that every believer, every follower of Jesus clearly understands: “For you know quite well that we were destined for [these trials].” You know I laughed because it may have been obvious to the early church, but it certainly is not obvious to us. Most Christians think: You mean, we’re destined for a hard life? But Paul does not stop on that morbid note. He adds: Be strengthened. Be encouraged in your faith. And don’t let trials unsettle you. We are destined for these hardships. In other words friend, life is supposed to be difficult. Yet it is amazing how many people believe that life should be easy. We bemoan the enormous weight of our problems, feeling as though difficulties are, I don’t know, a unique kind of affliction that shouldn’t be. We feel that tough trials have somehow been especially visited upon us and not upon others.
But friend, God has wired this world to be difficult. God knows it’s a broken world, and life is a series of problems to be solved. Yes, solving problems is a painful process, but it is this whole process that gives your life meaning. Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.” Isn’t that the truth! And the psalmist said long before him in Psalm 119, “It is good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” And elsewhere in that same Psalm, he says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.” Friend, this is why God destined us for trials. His purpose in redeeming us is not to make our lives happy, or healthy, or free of trouble, no. His purpose is to make you more like Jesus. And if Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered (as it says of Him in the book of Hebrews), then we certainly are not above our Master. So be strengthened and encouraged in your faith. Don’t be unsettled by your trials. You know quite well you are destined for them, and for good reasons. Alan Redpath writes about that good reason when he says, “There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch you until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to you. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose.”
Friend, once you truly know that life is supposed to be difficult then life is difficult no longer. Look, there’s more written about this in a copy of John Piper’s booklet, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.” He should have called it, “Don’t Waste Your Sufferings.” And today’s your last day to pick up your free copy of that booklet—a perfect thing to give a friend who is struggling with cancer, or with any chronic condition. Because if God has destined us for trials, let’s not waste them. Trials are not for our pleasure; they are for our profit. Once you accept this truth, you transcend it. So, come by my radio page today at joniandfriends.org/radio and pick up your free copy of John Piper’s booklet, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.”
© Joni and Friends
