Five letters that only briefly capture hint at the experience of loss. Loss of a friend, loss of a parent, but perhaps one of the most painful losses of all, the loss of a mate whom God Himself has prepared for you and whose loss is, to quote C.S. Lewis, "The crushing blow, the loss, which is Satan's corruption of that great gift of loving and being loved." And that is a bitter pill to swallow.
And I believe that on top of everything else, the undeniable theological fact that God ordains all our steps, and nothing escapes his attention or providence. Which of course means that what God brought together, He, as the Creator and Sustainer of all that is in the universe, allowed to break. That grief can come about due to death, divorce, or perhaps the worst of all, the culmination of a thousand silent (and not so silent) cuts by all involved.
Let me clarify at this point that even though the focus of this blog is on the loss of a mate, it can, of course, be applied to all pain that we encounter throughout our lives. And lest you be currently delusional, no one escapes this life without pain. So the sooner we learn the truth about God's love and His ultimate authority over all things, the more likely we will be equipped to handle the adversity we are all destined to experience.
We don’t want trouble, but when Jesus says ‘You Will Have Trouble’, there must be something to help us through.
There are some promises I would like God not to keep. "In this world you will have trouble." John 16:33. Other interpretations of this verse have the word tribulation, distress, suffering, trials, persecution, and dis-ease. What the first listeners heard when this passage was read was the greek word thlípsis. That word is defined as (“compression, tribulation”) or carrying the challenge of coping with the internal pressure of a tribulation, especially when feeling there is “no way of escape” (“hemmed in”).
We have a deep unconscious awareness of what the world should have been like. The design, and the whisper of perfection that is rooted within all of our souls, contrasted with the destruction of God's paradise, and the realization that our hope is truly in the world to come.
It’s actually very similar to what is sandwiched to the words on the other side of the verse, ‘In this world you will have trouble.’ The flip side of that verse reads, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33
I would like Jesus to have said, ‘But I have a magic wand and will take all your troubles away.’ He doesn’t promise that, instead he invites us to have heart, to have courage and that he has been through every trouble that will be experienced.
That we are not alone in the struggle. It’s an assurance that they can make it through the dark valley. That he, Jesus, has been there too. Fully divine, fully human. That he knows what it is like to be you. You’re not alone.
He knows what pain is like. Suffering is not unusual to him. Troubles are familiar. In this, we find comfort and companionship. He has overcome them all in the sense that he has been through them all and made it through to the other side. And most important, you are not alone. You have a Savior who has experienced all of our temptations, our struggles, our pain, and is there for each of us in our times of trouble.
And that is a promise I can count on.
