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.”

Having a troubled life can be exhausting. Personally I would much rather have a huge trouble, than multiple little troubles that slowly ebb away at my patience and demeanor, till I just break and can’t take anymore.

I would give satan far to much credit for all the little things that would go wrong through the course of the day, rather than just accepting the fact that this world has fallen, is broken, and will give us trouble.

Some of my trouble was poor boundaries, some, I fully believe, not being where the Lord wanted me, us, my family. There are times in life where drastic measures need to be taken. Either for one person in your family or the family as a whole.

The Lord has moved me through discomfort more than once in my life. Our Father is a father of seasons, and only He knows the length of the seasons of our life and when the time is for them to change. It is called walking by faith and not my sight. Sometimes the change is small, sometimes it’s pretty big.

Regardless, what James says in his book, chapter one, verses 2-4: Counting it all joy, as these trials bring about godliness. My paraphrase.

Oh to walk through the sessions of life in such a manner.

There are things I need in order to even remotely be able to do this.

1. God’s grace
2. God’s love
3. God’s wisdom

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of this. I’m so glad it is a reverent fear and not a cowering fear.

The reality of life on this side of heaven is that we are on a journey. This is a journey where we will have trouble, but regardless of the trouble, past, current, or future, we can journey out of a spirit of triumph because of Jesus’s finished work on the cross.