There is no such thing as a problem free life, and yet a lot people I encounter seem to have this grand illusion that God has somehow promised them a life without problems. They seem constantly disappointed when things don’t go “their way”. I realize that we have a whole Bible full of promises, but there is one promise that doesn’t get placed under a magnet on our refrigerators. It’s the one found in John 16:33 where Jesus said “In the world you will have trouble…”

         I personally don’t like that promise, and I’m one who wishes every day could be a good day. But if every day were a good day, there would be no “good” days, because there wouldn’t be any bad days to compare the good days to. So it’s the bad days that help us appreciate the good days.

         I’ve learned from personal experience that failure helps us appreciate success, debt helps us appreciate wealth, and tough times help us appreciate the good times. That’s just the way life is. I’ve also learned that our worst days can become our best days. Adversity is often the seedbed of opportunity. Bad circumstances have a way of bringing the best out of us. Our worst days can actually turn out to be our best days if we learn to see bad experiences through the good we have gained from them.

         I’m convinced that the people God uses the most are people who have experienced the most adversity. I believe that God wants to recycle our problems and turn them into a ministry. I know so many people whose adversity has become their ministry. They go through a painful divorce or the death of a child or a destructive addiction, but God helps them climb out of the pit so that they can help others in similar circumstances. God is in the business of recycling our pain and making it someone else’s gain.

         Jesus indeed said that we would have problems in this world, but He concluded that promise with these encouraging words… “but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”. Everyone has problems, but if you just have the presence of problems with the absence of Jesus, you only have part of the promise.

Greg Richards is Senior Pastor of Morning Star Church in Kaufman.