The Gospel of John - Trouble

In John 16:33, Jesus said: “in this world you will have suffering.” My oldest son is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. His job is to predict the weather. It’s a good job, because nobody expects him to get it right all the time. If my son, the meteorologist, was giving a forecast for our lives, here is what he would say: “There is a 100% chance that trouble will come into your life. Your forecast is trouble today and trouble tomorrow.” Happy Thanksgiving. This leads to a tension that we’ve all felt at one time or another. “Is God good when life is bad?” Is God good when you or someone you love gets a bad health diagnosis? When you have a relationship that is coming apart? When there are more bills than income? When you lose your job or get laid off? Let’s dig a little deeper. Is God good if life is bad…and it doesn’t get any better? Do you subscribe to the version of faith that would say, “I just have to pray harder or be more faithful and then God will turn things around? Well, is God still good when things don’t turn around? The Apostle Paul would say that He certainly is good. But the thing you need to know about Paul is that his life did not have a resolution. Things didn’t turn around for him. Things didn’t all come together for him at the end. And yet for him, Christ was more than enough. Join us this weekend as we discuss the Biblical tension that God is good in a world where suffering and trouble exist, and sometimes it doesn’t all just work out at the end.