TROUBLE, NOT IF, BUT WHEN

Jesus has the ears of His disciples as He has gathered them to finish His teaching preparing them for His death.  He is no longer speaking in parables, but speaking plainly, "I have told you these things, so that in ME you will peace.  In this world, you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world."(John 16:33)  Trouble expressed in the Greek gives the following words:  pressing, tribulation, distress, straits, afflictions, or persecution.  It seems to carry the idea of troubles which come against us and eventually, as we take the trouble inside our minds and try to acknowledge the trouble and then begin to sort out what is going on,  it becomes an "inside" job. This is pertinent information for today...I will have trouble, but Job did not have that information nor the completed Word of God to cling  as his anchor and his distress is mounting.

I am so very grateful for Job and his personal tribulation that he is walking through.  Even though the book is thought to be an early writing, Job expresses a marvelous understanding of God, HIS sovereignty, specifically, even though  his thoughts are sometimes entwined and ambiguous  with his emotions which color his perspective. Job's friends are into giving him answers and trying to "fix" him rather than moving to compassion and validating his pain. Lesson for me!  

His request in Job 19 is that his friends would have pity for him.  He also requests that his words be recorded and I am so glad that they were recorded.  This Christ follower sometimes struggles at troubles which cause "pain" or dis-ease.  What strength of character in the same chapter, Job expresses even as he  is drowning in hopelessness, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;  I myself will see Him with my own eyes--I, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!"  He has professed an understanding that in spite of his troubles and his responses to them, that he will see God. What a redirect statement for a man who has lost family, health, and finances.

An encouragement and redirect from my Bible study teacher who is having some physical pain...my takeaway from her,  "Am I willing to validate the fact that this is painful, and then am I willing to exalt God, moving my attention from my pain which wants to consume me to a greater focus on HIM?" This redirect seems to be saying, "LORD, I trust YOU and receive YOUR compassion for my pain." Her words, "I will exalt YOU and not my pain."  An encouragement that I will receive and practice.  Forever learning.  In process.  #IHAVETHREESONS.