“Why?” That is often the first question we ask when trouble invades our lives. Most of us feel that we have enough stress to deal with in our daily lives. There isn’t enough room in our day for a new problem. Even if that’s true, there will be times in our lives when we are blindsided by a problem so devastating that all our other problems seem trivial.
Some problem we can see off in the distance; so we have some warning. It might be an aging parent, the pending sale of the company you work for, a noise in your car that wasn’t there before. We all deal with similar problems, and some can be crushing. Still, we had time to pray and prepare.
The trouble that comes suddenly is nothing like what I just wrote. A sudden, heart-rending crisis is like being T-boned by another car in an intersection. That happened to me, and I see many similarities to a vehicular accident and other kinds of sudden troubles.
My Car was T-boned
While on my daily commute, I was less than a mile from work. The light changed to green; I started through the intersection, and with zero time to react, a car blew through their red light and hit me full speed. In an instant life went from “just another day” to sudden trouble.
Sudden trouble doesn’t limit itself to auto accidents. We can receive bad news from a doctor, the sudden loss of income, troubles that affect children or loved ones. We may be doing fine and then get a phone call telling us our identity was stolen.
The problem with sudden problems is that they can easily knock us off the path on which God has us. Internally, we feel like our feet have been kicked out from under us. We may be mad at God, questioning our past decisions, frozen by fear, tempted to run away or hunker down. All of these and more are common responses to sudden trouble, but none of these is a surprise to our Lord and Savior.
So, when sudden trouble knocks down your door, remember Psalm 94:18-19 (ESV):
18 When I thought, “My foot slips,”
your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
19 When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
Give sudden trouble to Jesus. Our victory can be found within the action of our faith in God.
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