Chaplain's Corner

Back in June in a chapel service the Scripture text that we read was from Matthew 6.  As I read the text one particular verse stuck.  Have you ever had that happen?  Whether it is in a conversation or while listening to someone speak, many things are said, but sometimes one thing just sticks.  That is what happened that day as I read this Scripture for chapel both on for our Blueberry Bay and Prairie Rose chapel and the Rehab Unit chapel.  The statement that stuck: “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Isn’t it funny that we keep looking for and longing for trouble free days?  Yet as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  We have become people who want to defy reality, who want to prove Jesus wrong.  That’s a strong statement, I know, but when we work hard to and long after trouble free days, that is exactly what we are doing.  We want trouble free days and sometimes we create considerable trouble working towards this goal.

It is interesting isn’t it how when a thought like this sticks, there seems to be an object lesson to go with it, something in our lives that just says, “See, I told you this was true.”  That happened the day I used this text in chapel.  At Bethesda Place we have a number of rooms that can be reserved for meetings and functions.  On this particular day in June, I had reserved the Great Room and the barbeque for the Steinbach Ministerial’s final meeting of the season.  One of recreational therapist at Bethesda Place had also arranged to use the space for a school group at the same time.  So first thing that morning the frantic recreational therapist and I met.  “What are we going to do?”  “Why did two things get scheduled for the same place at the same time?”  “I can cancel mine if it rains, but it doesn’t look like it is going to rain.”  After some fussing we figured things out and as it happened, the one group came and left just as the Ministerial was arriving and the conflict we were so frazzled about, didn’t happen anyway.

You see, even good planning can get messed up and these troubles happen, so there it is a bit of trouble.  But on the same day in my life, I got bad news from one of my sons and I was having difficulty with  some sores on my hands and the dinner that I made burned a bit and it rained later in the day so I couldn’t stain the deck at home as my wife and I had planned.  Yep, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

The truth remains, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.” If we live to be 100 years old, we will have lived 36,500 days and every one of those days will have had some kind of trouble.  Some days will have little troubles: stubbed toes, a bad cold, a dead battery in the car, or a rained out picnic.  Other days will have moderate troubles: a broken arm, a job lost, a fender bender on the way to work or a fight with the wife.  And some days will have big troubles: the doctor tells you that it is cancer, you get a phone call telling you a friend has died suddenly in an accident, or you daughter comes home from school and breaks the news that she’s pregnant.

Go ahead; think over the days of the past week.  Each has had its own trouble, hasn’t it?   Maybe the trouble was small or moderate or maybe it was one of those days with huge trouble, but every day had some trouble and some days have more than we thought we could handle.  Some days have the kind of trouble that make us want to curl up in bed, pull the covers over our head and pray that when we wake up it was all a bad dream.  But generally it is not and when we wake up, if we could get any sleep, we are left to deal with the trouble again in the new day that dawns.

Now you may be wondering if I’m depressed or something; all this talk about trouble.  No, I’m not depressed; although I have experienced that trouble and hope I never have to again.  But the reality is that life is a mixed bag of joy and sorrow, ease and trouble, difficulty and pleasure.  Every day is mixed with all these realities and what Jesus was commending to those who care to listen is that because “Each day has enough trouble of its own” we need to live a day at a time and stop borrowing tomorrow’s trouble by worrying about what might be before it even comes.

This doesn’t mean that planning is foolish.  There are sufficient Scriptures that commend good planning for us to come to that conclusion.  What it does mean is that as we plan, we need to hold our plans lightly and trust God more than we trust our plans (more than we trust ourselves and others).  After all, plans are simply a projection of our desires or the desires of others.  This is what James the apostle spoke of when he said,

Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’  (James 4:13-15).

It would also do us all well to stop hoping for trouble free days in this life, this is, isn’t it, a foolish hope.  If Jesus said there wouldn’t be any, it is kind of foolish to long for them.  This longing is just one of many ways our longing for heaven is manifest.  This longing for heaven is not the exclusive domain of Christian folks.  It is a human reality, just as the hope for trouble free days is a human reality.  Irregardless of a person’s nationality, color or creed; irregardless of the religion or lack of religion that the person embraces; it matters not what expression of spirituality the person exercises, we as human beings live with a longing for heaven in our hearts.  We may call that longing different things, but when you take a good look at it from a biblical perspective; it is a longing for a time and a place when trouble will be no more.  That, my friends, is heaven.

Having been trained in interfaith ministry, I know many are very uncomfortable with the belief that there is only one way to heaven.  Many are teaching and want us all to believe that all roads lead to heaven, that heaven is the ultimate destiny of every human being, no matter what path they followed here in this life.  Biblical Christians come to the Scriptures with the understanding that they are to be interpreted literally based on their historical and grammatical context.  This being the case, biblical Christians, have no choice but to affirm that not all roads lead to heaven, in fact all but one road leads to hell.  That one road or way that leads to heaven is through belief in several biblical facts.

 First, we are all sinners and consequently, none of us deserves a place in heaven and none of us can do anything at all to change that fact.  Second, God loves us and in his love he has chosen to give us what we can not earn and do not deserve; forgiveness from our sins and life everlasting in heaven.  This gift is a person, Jesus Christ, God incarnate.  Third, the way this gift works is that the punishment our sins deserve was taken willingly by Jesus.  He died in our place and when we believe this we receive God’s gift of forgiveness, and eternal life and enter into a personal relationship in which God calls us his children.  Jesus himself spoke of the exclusivity of this one way when he said, “I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So, if you are longing for the day when there will be no more trouble, then you are longing for heaven and if you are longing for heaven I hope you will receive the gift of eternal life in heaven by trusting in Jesus.