Born To Trouble

I was at a writer’s conference once where a speaker described how to make a story suspenseful. Metaphorically speaking he said something like, “you get your main character in so much trouble he climbs up a tree to get out of it. Once he’s up the tree you throw rocks at him.”

Throwing metaphorical rocks at a fictional character can make for a good novel. Fictional trials and tribulations can be worked out and solved in three hundred pages. I wish it were that easy with real life trials.

Job 5:7 says “Yet man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward.” Insightful man, Job. But then he would be, he went through enough trials for several men.

Everyone in this life will have trials and troubles, if you breathe trials will happen and there is no getting away from it. Some will be fortunate and suffer though seemingly light trouble while others will be hammered with bone crushing pain and tragedy. I think of parents who lose children, people disfigured or paralyzed in accidents or war and know that my trials are a walk in the park comparatively.

But heavy or light, trials and troubles test our faith and often twist us into knots. They turn our hair gray, give us ulcers, and often show us who our real friends are. The one I’m going through right now is certainly trying. A hundred times a day I must remind myself that God is in control. And yes, I know we are to give our burdens to the Lord, I just seem to keep picking them back up.

My devotional for today talked about eternity, about this short life only being a rehearsal for real life in eternity. And there, thank God, there will be no more trials, no more crying, and no more pain.

Maybe we are born to trouble, but we can also be born again into the Kingdom of God and a blessed trial free eternity with Him.

“This is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God prepared for those who love Him.” 1Cor 2:9 NLT