He warned me, but I was hopeful that my January would be the same as any other — warm and sunny. Yes, that weatherman said it would snow and that I should prepare the pets, plants, and people. But I rebelled — it’s south Texas. You know, it never snows here and I wasn’t going to over-react to this forecast that might not be.
But that weatherman, he was right. It began snowing right at midnight and feathery flakes of icy manna fell from the skies for 8 hours, right here in south Texas. We were frozen in.
I have such a hard time heeding warnings.
Maybe it’s hard for you to heed those annoying warnings too. But whether you and I submit to their cautions or not, warnings usually are there for a reason.
Jesus gave plenty of truthful warnings. One in particular —
“In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” (John 16:33 MSG)
Jesus warns us that we WILL have difficulties, hardships, tribulations. There’s no escaping it. And to top it off, Jesus doesn’t warn as a weatherman forecasting what MIGHT be. No, Jesus speaks truth to what WILL be.
I do not like the sound that there will be hardship ahead.
You see somewhere in the back of my mind it seems that I should be able to do all the right things and never have hardship. I know I wasn’t taught this. In the big scheme of the world it doesn’t even make sense. But that’s how I want it — I want to control my circumstances my way. Be good — life’s good! Always joyful, healthy, happy — always.
And there it is — I forget about the warning again.
In this world you will have trouble — tribulation — difficulties.
But Jesus doesn’t just leave us with a gloom and doom warning, he then answers — but take heart! Take heart and be prepared. If you heed the warning, you know that difficulties ARE COMING.
How do you live hopeful?
I love the KJV translation of this verse. “In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” We will have troubles, and our response is to be of good cheer!
It’s another crazy thing that doesn’t make sense, but I love that my Savior always did everything upside down. When trials come, he knows the best way for you and I to be strong and navigate through them is to remain cheerful — hopeful. How can we do this? We can because He overcame the world — he is the Victor — and through Him we will have the Victory too.
We might be having a bad day, month, or year fighting the biggest challenge we’ve been dealt, but to press on and become stronger on the other side, we must stay hopeful. We remain hopeful by looking at this moment and counting the blessings we have right here — right now.
Lessons from my cheery hopeful flowers.
Because I didn’t heed the warning that snow was coming, my innocent flowers suffered. (That’s a lesson for another day about what happens to others when we don’t heed warnings!) Anyways, these beautiful pansy’s had to bare the brunt of the arctic freeze.
Life had happened. Snow fell. They were lifeless. Before I could get to them they had inches of mounded snow covering their dainty frail petals. Hardship had fallen upon all my little pots of pansies.
As the morning sun rose, I knew they were gone. I couldn’t see how those delicate flowers could have held strong under the weight of snow and ice. Life had been harsh. For two days they weathered frozen ice sitting down upon them and yet they fought through to be more beautiful than before.
Tribulation had come and they were full of cheer.
And because they were full of cheer, they brought me cheer.