I have told you these things so you may have peace in Me. In the world you will have much trouble. But take hope! I have power over the world. John 16:33 (NLV)
Trouble is Normal
As Christians, we are confused and sometimes even hurt when bad things happen in our lives. We believe for some reason, that because we are believers, bad things shouldn’t happen to us. Some of us have an unspoken expectation that we should breeze through life with no resistances at all, but even Jesus said we would have trouble. He told us we would have trouble, but we can find peace in Him and trust Him because He has already overcome it all.
Jesus tells us that we will have trouble, so we should not be surprised or be fearful and we shouldn’t let it take us out either. The easy part is knowing this, but the hard part is living it out in the middle of trouble. It is a part of life on earth and there is just no escaping it. The best news is that Jesus has all the power. He has power over the world, and He has power over everything in it and in our lives – even trouble. If we can focus on that and cling to Him, we can have peace in the hardest times.
Many things in life can steal our peace, such as financial strains, relationships, conflicts at work, etc. Satan would like us to believe there is no peace to be had. We know in our hearts that Jesus overcame the world so that we could have this peace, but why don’t we feel this peace that we “know” we are supposed to have? We may feel abandoned or discarded by God in the middle of the struggles. It can be difficult to understand why He allows some things to happen. Our feelings are very real, but we cannot allow them to snuff out the truth of who God really is, and what He has done, and will do for us. In the face of such difficult times and intense feelings, we have to tell ourselves what we know is true, regardless of how we feel.
No matter where we look, we will never find peace until we turn to Jesus. He is the only one that can give us true and lasting peace. Often, we will spend a lot of time and money trying to find peace in all the wrong places. We think if we can just numb enough, we can forget, and the pain and troubles will go away. The truth is that we have just compounded our troubles. Everything that is not Jesus, and falsely promises peace, will let you down every single time.
We have the amazing grace, mercy and love of a Savior; a Savior from sins, a savior from diseases, a savior from pain and best of all, a savior from ourselves, considering we make a lot of trouble for ourselves. If it were up to us to find peace ourselves, we would be totally helpless and hopeless. He is the reason we can have peace. There is absolutely nothing we can do to bring peace to ourselves besides lean into and trust in Him. We can have peace because He came, because He brought Salvation, and along with it, the gift of peace. For all of us, when we are tired, and life feels hopeless and peace is nowhere to be found, He is our Prince of Peace and we can only find peace in Him.
