Have you ever wondered or asked why was your life so filled with pains and sorrows? Has the ‘Why, me Lord?‘, ‘If it’s not one thing it’s another‘, or ‘Will it ever end?‘ ever crossed your mind or been spoken from your lips? Have you ever come to the place you thought you were destined to live the majority of your life with troublesome situations with only teasing moments of good times? Does it seem like the ones that come looking for you are misery, negativity, trouble, and frustration?

As children the bad things we experienced caused us to store them away and categorize them forming a wall of defense for future encounters. The lies we believed and the suffering from them will never leave our memories or hearts. The bad relationships that caused the tears to flow and the heart to ache will not be forgotten. The betrayals will always be a haunting sight when that memory resurfaces in our minds. Our inward defense pops up holding them at a distance or they overtake us with the emotions all over again. The majority of the time most people fight them off or avoid them not wanting to go through it again. Troubles and misery for most of us is something we don’t want to keep company with.

As time goes by some will face getting tired and weary battling thoughts of they do not want to go home, go to work, or be around people because they become use to always something unpleasant occurring. A constant of some form of suffering is something not all people experience. There are those in life you meet that seem to have the silver spoon in their mouth. Their luck is always blessing them in money, jobs, promotions, and relationships. Their path always seems to be the smoothest while yours is full of debris, holes, and obstacles. They always get the girl or the guy while you are completely ignored. You may have accepted that each step you take will be with the expectation of what problem is next.

There is a side to suffering very few ever see. If it happens to you the void is filled with understanding and perception to the total effect of that bad event. There is a void if it happens to others there is no true experience knowledge inside of you, but only the outward observance and the guess at the pain of suffering. If the majority of things fall right into place and the minority of things fall apart for you this reading will be difficult to wrap your mind and heart around with complete understanding. If the majority of your life is filled with troubles, problems, and never quite lining up for your life you will connect with this reading.

I have heard the song “Blessed” that has the words of “Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops…healing comes through tears…sleepless nights…trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise…“, but never really digging into it. The song “Thy Will” has words like “…I may never understand that my broken heart is a part of your plan…All I’ve got is hurt…But this don’t feel good right now…It’s hard to count it all joy…” , again not really going past the surface of the words. The song “Trust in You” says, “Letting go of every single dream…I try to win this war I confess, my hands are weary, I need Your rest…” is another hearing with nothing past the surface to understanding what is behind the words.

Troubles will try to drive you, negativity will try to push you, problems will try to beat you, sorrows will try to crush you, betrayal will try to stab you, lies will try to slap you all of which is an attempt to surround you with darkness and defeat. We know the fight will be there when we wake up and remain until we sleep with possible nightmares even there.

The paths in this life that I was drove down, pushed into, beaten with, betrayed into, slapped, blindsided, and crushed with caused me to reach out to someone I was completely ignoring. As you can tell I have made God my best friend, but just because He is my best friend does not make me instantly smart and smooth life. We are the ones still learning every day. It does not matter what you affiliate yourself with or title yourself because you are not automatically perfect because of the connection. When I took my first step towards God I was not instantly a saint. Each day, each step, each word, and every action was learning to be better than what I was before.

As I was talking to my best friend He dropped a thought in my mind that I had never considered before. This is one way He guides us by showing us a thought path for us to follow Him to the end of understanding. At this moment I was pondering the troubles we all face daily and the different levels. This is when He dropped an image of a father sitting about two feet apart from his child that was weeping. The father looked at the child with eyes filled with the look of please scoot closer to me and I will wrap my arms around you and cover you with my love that changes not. Why doesn’t the father scoot over and force his arms around the child, I wondered. Some of us want to handle things are own way. Forced comfort is not one hundred percent effective being one-sided as compared to freely choosing the comfort and the two agree as one.

A son took his inheritance and spent it with wild living all the while he could not be helped until he freely and willingly chose to commit himself to his father (Lu. 15:11-24). We all have set our sights on something in this life whether it was a person we wanted in our life or a certain thing we wanted to be and went after it with all of our might. The not getting the girl or guy we wanted, the not getting the certain thing we wanted, the not becoming what we wanted to become, and the other things that did not end well there may have been a reason behind them. The son wanted to live life spending money and partying not realizing there was an ending and a beginning to something different he had not considered. The happy days of parties and money turned into no one really cared about him with no money in his pockets. Misery, loneliness, and being poor were now his only friends. I see the father sitting close to the child wishing they would allow him to comfort them, but it was up to them. Here the son is in a muddy hog pen slopping the hogs to make some money and having nothing to eat hungered for the hogs food. ‘Why, me Lord?‘ could be going through his mind sitting there desolate. Behind his trouble was a father wanting the chance to help a son to live and learn the right things in life.

What if troubles in this life had God behind them waiting on you to seek Him? What if behind the sorrows you are facing God was waiting on you to cry and be comforted with Him? What if a sickness had God standing there waiting on you to seek Him, meet Him and trust Him? What if your hunger and thirst God was there waiting on you to ask Him, seek Him, and knock at His door?

This is a time to stop, stand there, and really look around yourself. We are in a day that there are all kinds of avenues we can choose to follow. Could it be the different troubles we are having has God waiting on us to choose Him? There are more sides to this life than eating and drinking the pleasures of this world. There are more important things in this life than being recognized by our fellow-man. There are better positions to attain in this life than the leaders of this world. There is a status to reach inside yourself that is far greater than the things of this world.

Your pushing for financial status quo may never be reached being constantly blocked by troubles of this world. Your troubles may be God standing behind them waiting on you just to lean on Him, acknowledging Him, and trust Him to guide your paths (Prov. 3:5, 6). I know it may be hard to believe, but there is a down side to being well off. It is nearly impossible for a rich person to enter into heaven as it is for a camel to crawl through a low gate to a city, eye of a needle (Mtt. 19:24). Your troubles could be the thing keeping you close to God making it easier for you to humbly enter into heaven. This reading may hurt because you would love to have less of a financial burden on your shoulders, but that weight may be what keeps you awake to praying to God.

A person that has it all together in money, power, relationships, and material things is something we observe from the outside wishing the luxuries would be ours. We live from pay check to pay check barely meeting the needs of our families. We have the pressure of paying our bills on time. We have no power of influence to use for ourselves. Our relationships are filled with arguing, negativity, misunderstandings, and seem like constant turmoil. Our material things come from hand-me-downs, neighbors, and the cheapest things we can afford. We are constantly sacrificing our time for all other things, but ourselves. Reality tells you they will always be there. Could it be behind all these things we know will always be there sits a Father close to us waiting on us daily to turn to Him for help in carrying our loads in life keeping us close to Him to the day He reaches up and removes that burden with the words to us to enter in my good and faithful child?

If you or I were rich, wealthy, and increase with goods would we even think of our heavenly Father? Would it even dawn on us that day in the hospital bed dying beyond the ability of the doctors all our riches, wealth, and increase of goods could not stop death either? Would it cross our minds anything and everything we physically have in this world someone else will take it over and do with it as they please? The comfort and false peace we would live daily would meet a harsh reality when it comes to the things of our heart. Rich people often seek for the treasures of real friends, real relationships, and real things for their spirit because they have not been pushed as we have in daily life.

The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit and attitude robs us of the things that matter and will last for an eternity. The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit plays and sings to us songs of temporary lies of happiness and false peace. The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit dances before us wooing us into a vision of parties with no tomorrows. The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit drives us to credit debts beyond the truth of our financial means. The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit places glasses over our eyes with false lenses of paradise on the inside and the outside is black as night. The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit brags to con us on our outward appearances avoiding the looking on the inside of our hearts. The ‘need of nothing‘ spirit of this world would have us to believe lots of money, lots of clothes, lots of vehicles, lots of homes/cabins, and lots of good times is the answer to true happiness. What the ‘need of nothing‘ spirit does not tell us the good things of this world puts us to sleep, blinding us from the miserable, nakedness of our wretched soul, and the difficulty of entering heaven after this life (Rich man and Lazarus, Lu. 16:19-31).

My troubles are to keep me praying fresh living prayers. The bombardments of negativity are supposed to keep me seeking God’s positiveness. My on-edge of poorness should keep me humble and mindful for my need of God. My misery should make me run into the arms of God for the comfort of a better tomorrow. My naive acceptance of lies and deceptions should drive me to desiring the truth from God. My shame should cause me to desire to be clothed and covered by God.

None of us enjoy suffering, sorrows, losses, breakups, betrayals, negativity, and other kinds of stresses in this world. I don’t like the thoughts that my tomorrows will have troubles waiting for me to arrive. If I know the Father is standing there with that trouble ready with His grace in hand I want to find Him and freely choose His sufficient help in time of my need.  If I know the Father is going to take the sour lemons that life hands me. I want to look past the present suffering and find Him to allow Him to convert it with His power into making me a better person.

Paul was suffering in his flesh with tormenting pain. He asked God to take away this pain three times (2 Cor. 12:7, 8). It never occurred to me suffering, negativity, pain, and sorrow may be putting or keeping something in its right place for the preserving of the status of my soul. We all have different things in our lives that will so easily cause us to fall and sin (Heb. 12:1). Behind our problems could be a reason for to keep us in check. It sounds awful, I know. I would rather be alive to God than to allow the ‘need of nothing‘ spirit deceiving me like the rich man waking up in hell for eternity. God told Paul the reason behind his suffering and tormenting pains of the flesh was for to keep him humble and the spirit of conceit would not deceive him into losing his own soul. This temporary suffering of the body was a time for him to keep his spirit fresh in prayer and fellowship with the Father sitting right next to him for His grace is sufficient and His power makes perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

Problems, troubles, negativity, sorrows, and all other pains of this life could be God wanting you to call on Him, to meet you, admit you are not God, to look for Him, to trust Him, and to believe Him in keeping your soul safe from the ‘need of nothing‘ spirit. After God told Paul the reason behind the suffering Paul said, “…I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10).

TROUBLES AN OPPORTUNITY?

Naaman    –    2 Kings 5:1-15     God wanted Naaman and others to know, meet, and see

Pharaoh    –    Exodus 7-11           God wanted Pharaoh to admit He was God and to Obey?

Balaam       –    Numbers 22:4-33       God wanted Balaam to believe Him and Listen?

Blindness  –  John 9:1-41     God wanted understanding to be seen as true sight?

Our daily battles with pain, sorrows, sufferings, negativity, and other stressful aggravations are not against flesh and blood that we can physically see, but by the spirit of rulers, authorities, powers of darkness, and spiritual forces of evil (Eph. 6:12) that we cannot see, but by our side if we look for Him is God waiting with grace sufficient enough and power to perfect our weakness to be called upon. May be He just wants us to be close to Him as much as possible until we are safely home.