Troubles we know are part of life. But how to do we look at them? Are they good or bad? To understand them we need to understand who God Is. He is good and right and correct. He is responsible for creation and the world around us remaining into existence and moving along. He makes the sun rise on the good and the bad, on the acceptable and unacceptable. If he had condemned, then things would have halted and life would cease, long ago. And we survive because He loves all, without partiality and bias.

Since, God we have reasoned, is good, and in charge or everything in this world, what comes about is with his knowledge and understanding. And He who is love lets things happen to us and around us, lets them happen because they are good. Even those things ‘we’ label as bad, unacceptable or negative, are really good. And our limited vision and understanding, makes us afraid and therefore we have labelled them as bad.

I have grown up drinking tea with milk, and abhorred black tea, but a time came when I had to switch to black tea, and in the beginning I just could not appreciate it, because my labels for it, made me look at it negatively. But now that I have got used to it, I appreciate it. In this same light, St Paul recounts his trials and suffering. Yes they were experiences one could do without, but slowly he understood and appreciated the problems of life, because they drew him closer to God and towards perfection, here and now, in body, mind and spirit.

Jesus knowing this, is fore warning informing us; to be His disciple means to take up the cross of discipleship, which simply means to be on a constant march to perfection, under Jesus’ guidance. In this march, troubles and problems will come, because they are instruments that perfect us. We will have difficulties with the world, but just don’t premeditate how you will deal with these things, because when we premeditate, we do not let (we push out) the Holy Spirit, to inform us so we can respond correctly. It is fear and insecurity that makes us premeditate and try to make arrangements to protect ourselves and our future. In doing so, there is no Jesus in this future. We need to Trust Jesus, and accept the paths that he is steering us through.

Troubles can be windows to who we are, and aid us to change ourselves to something more proper in Jesus, by allowing Him to take us through them.