When Life Gets Hard

“Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards”—Job 5:3.  This was part of the argument of Eliphaz the Temanite, one of Job’s comforters.  His ultimate conclusion would be that Job’s calamities were the necessary consequence of his sin.  Anyone familiar with the book of Job knows that is not the point God is making, but consider what Eliphaz was saying for just a moment. Just as surely as the sparks from a fire fly upward, trouble comes to us all.  The Bible scholars tell us that the Hebrew word behind “trouble” could be rendered “hardship, affliction, anguish, or sorrow.”  Eliphaz’s conclusion may have been wrong, but this step in his logic is unassailable: All of us are born unto trouble.  

I know something about trouble, or I should say, the Lord is teaching me some lessons about dealing with difficulty.  In my 32^nd year of pastoral ministry I began to fall down.  Long story short, I was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition (70 people out of every million) and told I would slowly lose the ability to walk, to talk, and eventually to reason.  I retired from the pastorate and began looking for a path through this particular hard patch.  Doing so has supplied me with some resources that can help anyone, no matter what sort of trouble you are dealing with.

First, it’s okay to grieve.  You may not be dealing with a life-altering medical diagnosis, but I have found it is downright therapeutic to grieve over loss.  If your marriage falls apart, or you lose the dream job, or your son ends up in prison, it is okay to grieve.  To determine to “keep a firm upper lip” and forge ahead, thereby burying your trouble, simply will not work, nor is it emotionally healthy.  Those buried feelings will come out of the grave at the worst imaginable times.  It is far healthier to deal with them--perhaps through the help of a professional counselor, a pastor, or maybe even a trusted friend.  We are not all wired the same way, but some of us have found keeping a journal to be a way to get all of our feelings out.  I have kept a journal off and on since college, and looking back I can see my entries are always longer whenever there is some problem.  Of course, the length and depth of your grieving will depend on the nature of your trouble and even on your personality. You don’t want to allow your trouble to define you.  Grieve, and maybe continue to do so privately, but at some point move on.

What do you move on to?  I have found great comfort in God’s Word.  It is interesting how significant trouble will change the way you look at the Bible.  As a spiritual discipline I had read through the Scriptures at least once a year since my days in Bible College.  I had preached just about every Sunday since the fall of 1982.  I don’t say that to brag but to point out I was pretty familiar with the Bible.  Still, I have been amazed how many times I have seen things which I just had missed all of those other times I had read the same passages.  I suppose it would be more accurate to say I now see an application from a verse not to my congregation, or as a buttress for a doctrine, but as something that seems to be there for me.  One day I came to Psalm 37 and noted how the verbs in the first seven verses just spoke to my heart.  It begins “Do not fret,” continues with “Trust in the Lord,” and admonishes me to “Delight yourself in the Lord.”  What’s more the passage says “Commit your way to the Lord,” and finally “Rest in the Lord.” It was just what I needed to hear. I am not a mystic, but I believe the Lord led me to that passage on that day to minister to my need.  I fully believe God will do that for you as well.

Some may wonder why I would mention turning to the Bible before talking about prayer. Obviously, one of the first responses we all have to trouble is prayer, but I put it after devotional reading of God’s Word because of the guidance the Bible can give to our prayers.  I am not sure where I first encountered it, but several Christian leaders have advocated “praying the Bible.”  In brief, this is looking at a passage and applying it to yourself in prayer.  Take the first verse of the 23^rdPsalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”  I have prayed, “Lord I thank you for being my shepherd.  I know that shepherds do so many things for their flocks, and I can see those things in my life.  I rejoice in the fact that I have a vital relationship with You.  You are not just a shepherd or the shepherd but my shepherd.”  This approach to prayer is nothing new.  The earliest reference I can find to it is in the writings of Augustine. In his letter (#130) to a woman named Anicia Faltonia Proba, who lost everything when Rome was sacked in 410 A.D., the great theologian outlines this approach.  You will find similar advice about prayer from Martin Luther and John Calvin.  Timothy Keller has brought together much of this ancient approach to prayer in his book simply entitled Prayer. Other writers like Donald Whitney and Stormie Omartian have book-length presentations of this approach.  Speaking of prayer, it is a good thing to ask people to pray for you.  Sure, it will call for a degree of humility, but don’t let your pride stand in the way of God’s blessing.

Look for support from fellow travelers.  If your trouble is with some sort of addiction, there are all sorts of 12-step programs employing forms of the approach made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous. The folks at Saddleback Community Church saw the power of this and developed Celebrate Recovery, which has been helpful especially in the area of marital problems.  While actual personal interaction is better than social networking over the internet, I have found a group on Facebook that is made up of people dealing with my particular medical problem and their care givers.  I have traded information about the latest medical developments with people around the world.  If you can find people who are dealing with a similar sort of trouble you can both receive and give support.

Finally, remember that many of God’s most used people have been well acquainted with trouble. The “prince of preachers” Charles Spurgeon battled depression through most of his very successful ministry.  You can see this reflected in his very popular devotional book Morning and Eveningwhere he gives sound advice to those of us in trouble.  One of my favorite passages is the entry for the evening of November 11^th. “Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good.  Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God.”

*This blog post was originally written for the Fall 2018 issue of Fusionext, a magazine produced by Randall House Publications for their D6 Sunday School curriculum.  It was titled The Burden Best Suited to Your Shoulder.