”Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Job 14: l. Every day the newspapers are full of terrible things, violent deaths, disasters, famine, war and disease, and yet unless these things are happening to us or someone we know, we read it and go on our merry way. In addition to those troubles that make headlines, there are countless millions of personal heartaches that take place every day that few ever hear about.

It may seem peculiar, but trouble is a very important part of our life and without it there is something lacking in one’s character. We are told ”for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” We may stop reading right there and assume that if we have trouble it is proof that God loves us. This isn’t necessarily so. Some of our troubles God sends us and some we may bring on ourselves. All too often we may give God the credit for bringing on a predicament which we got into all by ourselves. We can be sure, however, that our reaction to our problems and our solution to our troubles is being observed by the judge of all the earth. We need to remember that it isn’t the trouble that makes us strong, it is the way we react to it that determines what we are. We are to endure chastening, we are not to fold or wilt, but we are to observe from our troubles the lesson that God is trying to teach us.

Jonah couldn’t blame God for the trouble he got himself into but when he turned to the Lord, God provided the way of deliverance. Sometimes we are not going in the direction that God wants us to and when he provides a stumbling stone to direct us, we merely get up again and keep on going down the wrong path. Balaam was told by God that he shouldn’t go to Balak but so often we, like Balaam, are determined to do what we want to do and try to twist things to suit our liking. After we are in trouble we then give God the credit for our trouble and once delivered continue in the same ways. Trouble is intended to be a teacher. If we take the course and fail the test we miss the lesson God wanted us to learn.

Instead of bIindly getting up and running again after trouble knocks us to our knees, let us contemplate our position and review our situation. Perhaps we are not going God’s way. Jonah had a lot of time to think in the belly of the fish. The fast pace in which we live seems to Ieave no time for thinking, only running. Trouble is supposed to cause us to contemplate. Why are we in trouble, how did we get here, and what can we do to get out? God has promised us a way of escape so that we may be able to bear it but let us be sure that we use God’s way. Let us be sure that we profit from our mistakes, otherwise our chastening may have been in vain and God will find us to be unprofitable servants.