Trouble

“Life is difficult.”

This is how M. Scott Peck begins his acclaimed book, The Road Less Traveled, and I would argue it may be one of the best openings to any nonfiction work past or present. It’s neither poetic nor eloquent, as you might expect of a bestseller. It is, however, inspired, and many readers, myself included, have found their attention arrested by its simple truth due, no doubt, to considering the difficulties in their own lives, be they great or small. Anyone who reads these few elementary words can relate, and so anyone reads on.

As I punch these letters out on my smartphone, I find myself in an unplanned, forced exile away from home due to exposure to that irritating illness we’ve all become familiar with over the last few years. My first venture into the blogosphere found me in identical circumstances, perhaps fertile ground for written thoughts. In any case, I’m not yet showing signs of infection, but I don’t want to risk it for others in my family should it start to present itself. There is, after all, a family trip planned pre-Christmas, at this point just barely inside the 10-day window recommended for those exposed. So, dad is trying hard not to ruin the long-anticipated holiday party by getting everyone else sick.

Around, within, and beneath this misfortune are several others intertwined that led, in part, to this one. I have neither the space nor the interest in sharing it all here, but it brings to mind another brief remark, equally honest but measurably more eloquent: “When it rains, it pours.” Sometimes massive troubles can’t help but bring a friend, or two, or three, to your door. Regardless, they always rudely arrive, never having been offered an invitation.

At least one of these many troubles has lingered longer than the others, enough to feel like an eternity, ebbing and flowing in intensity from one day, week, month, year to the next. Each exhausting, unwelcome moment it reappears, it does so with seemingly greater force. Each time it arrives, a single question persistently comes to mind, both for the short and long-term: “How will this end?”

Oh, how I want it to end.

As time drags on and resolutions remain absent, the wish for a satisfying conclusion can easily give way to just an end — any end — good or bad. Let’s just get this over with, please.

If I also want God genuinely involved in my life, however — and this is a very hard truth to learn — I can’t have it both ways.

I have never been comfortable with tension. I’ve said so before, and it will likely be true until the day I die. I naturally expect that it is something to be avoided for the sake of peace. And I have expected that God looks favorably on my efforts to make peace. We are instructed as believers, after all, to seek peace and pursue it. But a verse I often overlook struck me this past Sunday, a verse that ought to alter my well-intentioned expectations.

“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

While we regard him, among other things, as the “Prince of Peace,” his words are a stark reminder that he did not avoid tension. In fact, he created it where necessary. Christ was accepting of it in a way I simply am not. In short, while many things, he was also a troublemaker.

By extension, God himself is a troublemaker.

Plenty of things for which I have only myself to blame. Plenty. I acknowledge this. Same goes for others whose choices, good or evil, affect me. But, man, how God shows up in the middle of it to take the blame or credit from us. And how our impatience for resolution causes us to lose hope and misperceive that we’ve reached the bitter, unpleasant end to our trouble, failing to see that it’s just the trouble of the day.

“That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

It’s always struck me that such a staunch, unapologetic unbeliever as Nietzsche not simply coined this statement but that it has such authentic application to the life of a believer. I might make one slight alteration, however, exchanging “me” for “my faith.” I’m not going to pretend here that I’ve reached that goal in current troubles. That’s where hope comes in, which, ironically, is often based on faith bolstered by past troubles resolved.

So, for now, “Life is difficult.” I pray I can learn to exchange this statement in time for another: “Trust the Troublemaker.”