How do we deal with difficulties?  When hardships come, how do we react?  How do we face the tough times and get through them and move on?  Make no mistake, we all face difficulties, pain, hardships and grief.  We must deal with personal tragedies or those of our friends, the loss of a loved one or our own impending death.  We must deal with difficulties that arise within our marriage or with our children or difficulties in the world such as war or terrorism, etc.  So how do we as Christians deal with the tough times?  Or how should we deal with them?

          Someone has said that a Christian is like a tea bag—not much good until it has gone through hot water.  There is some truth to that, for sure.  Most of us have gone through things in life that were hard at the time but we have learned from them and grown personally and spiritually because of them.  I don’t think God always wants us to go through suffering, but He does allow us to go through suffering.  He doesn’t necessarily will it, but He does allow it at times.  Some of our suffering is of course a result of our own actions—our decisions and our lifestyle do have consequences.  But often there is no connection—the diagnosis of cancer or a brain tumor or a tragic accident—sometimes life just blindsides us.  And there is no easy answer or reason.  I think of the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12 where he speaks of his own suffering and he says this: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 

          Notice Paul calls his “thorn in the flesh” a “messenger of Satan.”  We don’t know the precise nature of Paul’s thorn in the flesh, but most speculate that it was some sort of physical ailment.  Paul refers to it as a “messenger of Satan” but notice also that he says it is given to him to keep him from becoming conceited.  Satan would certainly not be worried about keeping Paul from becoming conceited, so God must be involved here somehow.  God allows this in Paul’s life and uses it for Paul’s own good and for God’s glory.  There are no easy answers to the question of why God allows suffering or why bad things happen to good people.  Although if we think about it, good things happen to good people too, and good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to bad people. 

          In the midst of the movie The Hiding Place, there is a scene set in the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany.  Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, are there, along with ten thousand other women, in horrible, degrading, hideous conditions.  They are gathered with some of the women in the barracks in the midst of the beds, cold and hungry and lice-ridden, and Betsy is leading a Bible class.  One of the other women calls out derisively from her bunk and mocks their worship of God.  They begin a conversation and this woman says what so frequently is flung at Christians: “If your God is such a good God, why does He allow this kind of suffering?”  Dramatically she tears off the bandages and old rags that bind her hands, displaying her broken, mangled fingers and says, “I’m the first violinist of the symphony orchestra.  Did your God will this?”  For a moment no one answers.  Then Corrie ten Boom steps to the side of her sister and says, “We can’t answer that question.  All we know is that our God came to this earth, and became one of us, and He suffered with us and was crucified and died.  And that He did it for love.”[i]

One of the biggest obstacles that keeps people from believing in God is the fact that bad things happen in life.  And yet we look at the life of Jesus and we see it was no easy road for Him either.  The Son of God who could do miracles and was perfect and without sin still had to deal with difficulties.  The author of Hebrews writes, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10).  And he says that because Christ “suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted” (2:18).  And then we read these words about Jesus from Hebrews 5 which I think we can all relate to.  “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.  Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him…(Heb. 5:7-9). 

I think we can relate to those words about offering up prayers and petitions and loud cries and tears to God.  Many of us, if not all of us, have been at that point at some time in our life.  Jeremiah is at that point in our text this morning.  He is complaining to God that he is ridiculed and mocked constantly.  He has preached the word of God but it has resulted in his being insulted all the time.  Jeremiah feels as though God has let him down.  Some translations have Jeremiah saying that God has deceived him in a sense—Lord, as your prophet, this isn’t what I signed up for, Jeremiah is saying. 

But let’s get back to the words from Hebrews about Jesus being “made perfect” through His suffering.  We can read that and think that what is being taught here is that Jesus was not perfect, but through suffering He then became perfect.  That is not the case.  Jesus didn’t need to become perfect—He was by His very nature perfect because He was fully God.  But He was also fully man.  He wasn’t 50/50—50% God and 50% human.  Rather, He was 100% God and 100% man.  Try to get your mind around that—you think politicians do fuzzy math.  Anyway, here is what His being made perfect through suffering means.  As the real presence of God on earth in the flesh, it was necessary for Jesus to learn obedience—not that He was ever disobedient, but He was called on to obey to an extent that He had never before experienced.  He was obedient even unto death, as the Scriptures tell us.  The temptations He faced were real and the battle for victory was difficult, but where Adam failed and fell, Jesus resisted and prevailed.  Jesus’ humanity was thereby completed, “made perfect”, and on the basis of this perfection He could become the source of eternal salvation for all of us.  In Jesus’ suffering, God is taking on our suffering, He is experiencing all that we go through in life and it’s in that sense that He is completed or perfected—He is completely able to empathize and relate to us—He is fully human because He has been in our shoes and walked the road of suffering that we must walk from time to time. 

Paul was on that road, Jesus was, Jeremiah was, and so was the author of psalm 69.  “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.  I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold.  I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.  I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched.  My eyes fail, looking for my God” (Ps. 69:1-3).  Some vivid imagery there—how many of you have been there before?  Ever felt like that?  The psalmist goes on to say: “But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation.  Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me.  Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me.  Do not hide your face from your servant;
answer me quickly, for I am in trouble.  Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes” (69:13-18). 

          Therein lies the first thing we need to do when dealing with difficulties: we need to pray.  The psalmist cries out to God in prayer as did Jesus Himself.  The first step is prayer.  in prayer we talk to God, but God sometimes speaks to us in prayer if we are willing to listen.  Prayer is really showing our dependence on God for strength and guidance and help.  How do you know you depend on God?  It is evidenced in what you are praying about.  Our prayer life shows us those areas where we have turned things over to God and those things that we’d rather handle ourselves.  If you only pray to God to heal you and you ignore him the rest of the time, then you depend on God only for your health or only for a miracle.  If you pray to God only that the Celtics might win the title, then you are depending on God to be a Celtics fan and nothing more.  If you pray to God about your job and your attitude and your addictions and your country and your marriage and your kids and your church and your pastor and your friends and your enemies and your health and the Red Sox; well then you depend on God for quite a bit.  You know that you need help—when times are good and when times are difficult.  What we pray about shows how much we depend on God. 

          So the first step in dealing with difficulties is prayer.  The second is reading the Scriptures.  We can go to the Bible for guidance and support and answers.  Now, we don’t necessarily get a clear, specific answer from the Bible for some problems we deal with in life.  The Bible doesn’t get specific with every single little scenario—it’s the big principles that are there that we must apply to our lives.  We must try to live as Jesus lived and sometimes that takes some guesswork on our part as to how to best handle a certain situation.  The Bible tells us what kind of people we should be—we should be like Jesus—but exactly what that looks like in every situation can be a bit unclear at times.  That’s why we need to be constantly in the Word of God so it sinks into our very being and becomes a part of who we are.  We must allow God’s word to shape us and mold us so that when our time of need comes, we can be prepared.  We heard the other night at our board meeting that God’s will is in God’s word and that when we open our Bible, God opens His mouth.  That is, when we read God’s Word, He speaks to us through that.  He speaks to us in prayer and through His Word.       

          We deal with difficulties through prayer, reading God’s word and also through friends, especially those in our church family.  Yesterday we had a workday here at church.  Thanks to those who showed up—we got some good projects done yesterday.  If you missed the workday and feel guilty about it, which you should be, (maybe you couldn’t sleep last night), talk to Bill Stafinski and he can make you feel better by giving you a project to work on around here.  But as I was getting ready to leave church yesterday (and I confess I had to leave early) Bill said to me something like: “See how much more you get done when it’s not just one person doing it all?”  He told me I should work that into my sermon—the importance of teamwork.  Well, usually if Bill says jump, I say, “how high.”  Or if he says, “Want to go to Coney Island? I say , “yes sir.”  When Bill speaks, you have to listen—unless of course your name is Lil. J  So how does this fit into the sermon?  We do depend on each other for things.  We do need teamwork.  Whether it’s spray painting the front gate and then depending on Bill to provide me with something that will get the paint off my hands or whether it is depending on a brother of sister to walk with us through a loved one’s death or a divorce or a diagnosis of cancer.  We need to pray.  We need to read the Bible.  We need the help and support of other people: godly people, wise people.  People who may not have all the answers, but they will listen and be present with us.  They will walk with us on that difficult road.  If many hands make light work as they say, then many friends make difficulties easier to deal with. 

          Hopefully most of us have experienced that here at Bethlehem.  When in need, your church family has stepped up to the plate as best we knew how.  I know for sure some of you have experienced that.  You depend on your church family for love and support and strength.  It’s good to pray and read the Scriptures, but you still can’t see God—we know He’s with us, but He isn’t there physically.  Friends can be there physically—we can reach out and touch them and hear them and see them.  And it’s then that we realize that through them God is definitely there and is more present than we may have first thought.     

          There are others ways to deal with difficulties, but I don’t want you to have to deal with the difficulty of sitting through a long sermon.  So I close with this.  We don’t always know why things happen, but we can choose how we will respond, what we will do.  You may explain to a small child all the medical reasons why they must have a shot in the arm, but when the nurse gets ready to plunge that needle into their arm, they run to mommy.  (Maybe some adults want to do the same).  But you see, the lesson here is that comfort comes not in always knowing the reason why, but in knowing the comforter.  Comfort comes not in always knowing the reason why, but in knowing the comforter.  Do you know Him?  Do you know the Comforter?  Amen.