Some of you might not know this, but from the seventh grade all the way through my senior year in high school, I didn’t live with my parents. Make that, I didn’t sleep in the same place as they did. I slept in a mobile home right next to theirs with my brother, Mike. That’s right. I had a bachelor pad from an early age.
You see a 12’ x 64’ mobile home gets a bit tight with three kids in it, and since second stories don’t work well with mobile homes, Mom and Dad simply found an old trailer and set Mike and me up in it. We had twenty acres a few miles outside of Lexington, so there was plenty of room. It was a great solution to the overcrowding problem.
Mike had the bedroom on the far end, and I had the one closest to Mom and Dad. Apparently, I was the less trustworthy of the two. Mike and I set up a music studio of sorts in the middle. It was great. I bet you wish you’d been so lucky as a kid.
We lived way out in the woods at that time. We had all sorts of critters around to make it interesting for a young boy, and lots of creepy crawlies to scare the girls. While we were by no means the Clampett’s, we raised chickens and goats, we had a couple of horses and the like and in my opinion such a life is to be envied. Unfortunately, over the years civilization has encroached and lots of the critters have left for more suitable lodgings, but the owls and an occasional coon still give the place a wonderful woodsy air.
It did have its disadvantages though. When you live in the woods, your property is not strictly your own; the creepy crawlies tend to stake a claim to your home as well. I discovered that one night at about 2:00 am when I was awakened by a scorpion who was offended that I had invaded his space without an invitation. The problem was that I had staked a claim on my bed years before. Nonetheless he registered his disapproval by stinging me right in the middle of the bottom of my left foot. He accomplished what he intended, I left, and I left quickly.
I used to love hearing my mother tell the story of the next day. She could never get all the way through the story without ending up in that breathless laugh of hers that I so loved to hear.
I was in a rage at the time, so my memory is clouded a bit; but Mom claimed that the next day, I spent several hours hobbling around scouring all twenty acres, looking under every rock I could find collecting the kin folks of the offending scorpion. I placed them all in a pot that I had gotten from the kitchen, added a touch of gasoline for flavor and sent them all home.
The part Mom truly loved to tell though was what happened the day after the great scorpion immolation when I was confronted with yet another scorpion as he sat on the kitchen linoleum and pondered the Grim Reaper before him. Mom used to tell me that the look I had of fear mixed with astonishment, utter disappointment and impotent rage was priceless, just before I threw up my hands and walked out.
I learned a valuable lesson back then that has been reinforced time and time again as the years have gone by. Namely, that trouble is going to come in this life and the second you think you have it handled, it will pick a new angle and come at you again.
So the question isn’t, “Will troubles come?”, rather it is, “When troubles come, what are we going to do about it?”
Now in that this is being written by a preacher, I bet you already know the answer that I am seeking. That being said, knowing the answer and acting on that answer are two separate things altogether. So I suppose my ultimate question is, “When troubles come your way, are you actually planning to give them to Christ right from the beginning, or would you rather engage in that fruitless struggle we are all so familiar with first, and then give them to Christ?”
As difficult as I know it can be sometimes, I would suggest that you simply hand the problems over to Christ right from the beginning, and enjoy the rest that only Christ can give even in the midst of troubles.
As many of us can attest, troubles will come in this life when we least expect them, but Christ is always there as expected. Lean on Him when times get difficult. Give Him your burdens. He does so long to share them with you. Never forget that when Christ said:
28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matt 11:28
He meant it.
Tony Rowell
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