If you are like most Christians, you struggle with trouble. What do I mean? I mean someone tells you they just got diagnosed with cancer, or they lost their job, or any other significant unpleasantness. What do we so often turn to? Some Christian-sounding half-true bromide, like, “trust in Jesus and everything will work out.” We are uncomfortable with any suffering (whether it’s ours or that of others), so we want to smooth things out and move on as quickly as possible. But that’s not the gospel.
We know there is trouble in the world—serious trouble. Sin is doing its worst to all creation. The gospel demands truth. That requires acknowledging trouble in all it’s awfulness, rather than brushing it under the rug. This doesn’t mean we wallow in trouble, but it does mean we are honest. Pain and sin are real.
That’s not our first inclination, but it’s too difficult. It’s harder to realize that the gospel doesn’t erase trouble (at least not yet). The gospel doesn’t erase trouble, but it does overcome it. The gospel is greater than trouble. When my children were young, if they got an injury, I could often distract them temporarily from the pain. I didn’t remove the injury, or the pain, but for a short time, they were able to cope. Of course, the gospel is far greater than distraction from trouble; it is the ultimate answer. But it does not entirely lift us out of trouble in this life.
As Christians, we tend to downplay trouble in order to get straight to grace, or the goodness of God. But that cheapens grace. Christ didn’t die for our sins because it was the most advantageous way to earn our eternal freedom. He died because the overwhelming disaster of mankind’s sins demanded it. If we downplay trouble, we are at the same time downplaying grace. We can strive for intellectual honesty by accepting trouble in all its awfulness, but then choosing to focus our attention on the magnificence of undeserved grace. Only by holding those two together do we get the full gospel.
