There are at least two life commonalities we all have as human beings: death and trouble. We will all meet death at some point in our life and we will all encounter trouble in this life. Death may seem like trouble to some people.

John 16:33

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

What we think about these topics, death and trouble, can change how we live our life. We can have a belief that we exist with really no other purpose, but to exist. To live our life, hopefully with more happiness than trouble and die feeling good about ourselves at the end of our life.

Or, we can hope.

There are two definitives in John 16:33. The first is that we WILL have trouble. The second, Jesus has OVERCOME the world. There is another point woven in there, but it is optional for us, we are offered peace. But it isn’t a peace that the world offers us, it is a peace that Jesus offers us. John 14:27 This peace is an eternal peace, not a short lived, blows with the wind sort of peace that comes with the world.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I heard a word deep in my spirit and it was: “This is just all part of the journey.” Cancer is trouble. I could have been all wrapped up in the diagnosis, the treatment, the surgery, which all impacted some very important life plans, like having a baby. But with this word of “This is all part of the journey,” came such a deep sense of peace. I knew everything was going to be alright. Even during the night after my last chemo treatment, when I passed out three times, couldn’t get off the floor, made it to the hospital to find out I had a blood clot on my left lung. The voice deep in my spirit was clear, “This is just part of the journey.”

A pulmonary embolism is no joke. It’s painful and from what I’m told is a near death experience. I had such a deep sense of peace, even in the midst of this trouble.

What Jesus says is truth.

What Jesus says is life.

What Jesus says is hope.

His peace is real, sustainable, true, life giving, and helped me overcome the world. Not because of who I am, or anything I’ve done, but because of who Jesus is and everything He has done.

I have lived a life of struggle and striving and it is exhausting. Now it is a life of seeking Jesus, instilling boundaries, and learning to run this race at Jesus’s pace and not my own.