The first paragraph in Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Travelled, is the following: Life is difficult. I suspect most of us can write pages and pages, some even books, to describe the Life is difficult in our lives. 

When you show up and enrol in Christianity, when you choose Jesus as your Saviour, it’s part of the package. Part of the furniture. Here everybody wears the T-shirt: Life is difficult. 

Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice but to take out the hardship that’s part of the package. One day, when we open the front door, trouble is waiting for us there.  

12Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. 

When one suffers so much that it feels as if your legs are going to give way under you, when the pain becomes unbearable, when the loneliness without a partner simply becomes too much, doubt easily creeps in. 

You say there is a loving God, where is He now? Have you seen how nice those people live who do not care about God’s things? Aren’t you barking up the wrong tree? Aren’t you being taken for a fool? 

However, we must realise that we’re not guaranteed an inside track because we’ve chosen God and Jesus and we’ve allowed the Holy Spirit to take up residence in our lives. On the contrary. If you pass yourself off as a toffee, someone will chew you up somewhere. 

Every sport has its injuries, people say. Well, the injuries that we Christians all too often sustain as we stand up for others in the world, are suffering. When we give food, we end up with bitten hands. 

We are driven into a corner, just because others don’t like our honest way of life. Because we stand up for injustice, we’re taken down, and our broken bones struggle to heal again. 

Life is for sure difficult for us who have chosen Jesus to be our Saviour. 

When we realise this, we can prepare ourselves for it. We then will be prepared when the hardship arrives at the front door. When we know there is an enemy that is going to make things difficult for us, we can arm ourselves with the right weapons to stop them and drive them back to the place where they belong. 

And we also know that sometimes you need a breakdown to get a breakthrough. God uses the suffering that hits us in life to shape us and make us grow. It makes us stronger, and we gain perspective. Many times, we hold on tighter to God and He draws us closer to Him. 

For sure life is difficult. But we are prepared for that, and we will take it on with everything in us, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will come out much stronger on the other side! 

Scripture
1 Peter 4:12-19 

Reflection
Where are you suffering?
What can you do about it?
How can it be changed into a positive? 

Prayer
Father, I suffer, and I struggle. You’ll have to help, because otherwise, I might not make it. I plead this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.