Facing Trouble

Recently, I was surfing the Christian TV channels and couldn’t help but notice that all of the Pastors was preaching on the challenges of our world today. There is, indeed, a lot of troubles that a lot of people are trying to work through. We know there is bound to be trouble in our lives… sometimes more, sometimes less. That has always been a fact. Those times can be tough!

King David certainly had his share of trials, even though he was special to God and a forefather of Jesus. No one is exempt from trouble because we live in a fallen world. In Psalm 27, he exclaims, “For in the time of trouble. He shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me up upon a rock.”

In this psalm, King David is not telling us how to escape problems and concerns, but to face them.

He is not saying how to hide from trouble but how to handle it. He says in his psalm that life is like a battlefield, and how war had risen up against him …. so sometimes it was difficult to carry on. It seemed to him a host (army) was encamped against him. But he had found in God a way to manage trouble and no host could overthrow him while the Lord of Host was with him.

On the days we have to go to” battle” do we, like David, depend upon the Lord of Host to defend, lead and guide us? God will use our troubles to bring us closer to Him where he listens to our prayers and sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts. There we can find courage, strength and God’s peace to meet each day’s challenges.

I would like to close with the words from a beautiful Gospel song.

I KNOW WHO HOLDS TOMORROW

“Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand.

But I know who holds tomorrow and I know Who holds my hand.”

Jan Knicely,

Associate in Ministry Emeritus, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church