The Best Of Trouble 4/15/45
Scripture: Psalm 71: 1-5, 7-24
Text: Psalm 71: 20; “Thou which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.”
In the Negro folk lore, there is a story, as related by Dean William J. Faulkner of Fish University, of one of the animals of the woods who took pity on a snake, lying cold and complaining in the roadway. He picked up the snake, put it in his blouse to be warmed up, and trudged along his way. When the snake got warm, and then threatened to bite him, he had to talk his way out of the threat. He appealed to Bre’er Rabbit who insisted on a re-living of the whole incident. When the snake lay on the road again as it was when picked up, Bre’er Rabbit quickly put a brick on top of it. Then turning to his woodland neighbor he advised, “Never trouble trouble, ‘till trouble troubles you.”
In simple and picturesque language, that is good advice against the borrowing of trouble, or should I say the inciting of trouble.
But sometimes trouble catches up to us without seeming invitation. Personal calamity appears, often unannounced, in the form of illness of self or loved one. Or the job that is one’s livelihood fades away, or a calamity of nature, such as fire or hurricane, swamps one. In the group life troubles appear uninvited - as in the baffling problem of depressionn or recession, unemployment, or the appearance and spread of unwanted warfare.
Are we to be overwhelmed by troubles? Or is there a way of getting the best of trouble?
Someone remarks that it would after all be a sorry world, from the viewpoint of our human experience, if there were no troubles to plague anyone. Doctors would have no patients; lawyers no cases; plumbers no work; fire engines would rust and their crews would probably be dismissed; police would be fired; most of us would even find our conversation starved or cramped.
Having no troubles to overcome, most of us would be stunted with contentment, ceasing to grow. Life would be without demand, tension, or flavor.
Of course, insofar as this may be true, it applies only to a “tolerable,” a “bearable” amount of trouble. When it gets desperately burdensome, when it begins to break our morale, when it becomes stark evil, then we face a real problem; a sort of “super-trouble.”
How shall we face that? It must not get us down. The reality of a caring, helping God comes here to our rescue. The Negro spiritual voices faithful reassurance in the power of God in the words, “I’m gonna tell God all of my troubles.”
The fact seems to be that most troubles can be overcome. Most troubles become unbearable only as we fail or refuse to face them; as we magnify them through worry and anxiety; as we do not see clearly how to become reconciled to them; as we fail to use the resources of God to transcend them.
There are several suggestions as to what to do with our serious troubles which I pass on to you today.
The first thing to do with any difficulty is to face it. To deny it or run from it only invites further difficulty. It helps to know and to recognize what is really involved.
A story of Abraham Lincoln recounts that one day he was seen walking down a street with two little boys, both of whom were crying lustily. When he was asked what was the matter with them, he answered, “Just what’s the matter with the whole world. I’ve got three walnuts and each wants two.”
Facing a problem squarely reduces it to its own size. Thus its dimensions do not grow in our minds, it does not fester in our human relationships. Sometimes it clears itself without further effort. Sometimes to know the problem is to find the answer. If not, it at least takes its proper place, without exaggeration, in the life of the one who must bear it.
Some troubles will yield to the treatment that appears in another Lincoln story. During Lincoln’s presidency, Secretary Stanton was angry with one of his officers. “I believe I’ll sit down and give him a piece of my mind,” said the Secretary. “Do so,” said Lincoln. “Write him now while you have the matter on your mind. Make it sharp. Cut him all up.”
Needing no further encouragement, Secretary Stanton produced a scalding letter. When it was finished, he read it to the President. “That’s right,” said Lincoln, “That’s a good one.” “By whom can I send it?” asked Stanton. “Send it!” replied Lincoln, “Why, don’t send it at all. Tear it up! You have freed your mind on the subject, and that is all that was necessary. Tear it up! You never want to send such letters. I never do.”
It had really been good for Secretary Stanton to express his thoughts. They were not repressed or pushed back into his subconscious mind to pop out again. Once expressed, where they could do no harm, they could be forgotten. How often human relations could be smoothed by such a method - always provided that the emotional explosion is kept in confidence and not allowed to reach the other party through some gossip!
But that is not the only way to face trouble. Our troubles are frequently more than just stored-up irritation. Sometimes they are very real in fact. If a person thinks he is ill, and harbors it, he may make himself ill; but if he takes it to his physician, and finds out what the trouble is, he can take steps to overcome the difficulty.
Financial troubles always need to be faced, and worked through (wise are the husband and wife who work through financial problems and strategy together!)
Defects of character never correct themselves without effort.
He who would valiant be ‘gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent, to be a Pilgrim.
Well, one way, a necessary way, of dealing with trouble is to face it .
2) Another factor in overcoming trouble is to banish anxiety. Jesus said, “Be not anxious about the morrow.” (The King James version that says “Take no thought for the things of tomorrow” is probably an error in translation. What many scholars believe Jesus did say was “Be not anxious about the morrow.”)
It is the anxiety, the worry and insecurity which we associate with our troubles which magnifies them to unbearable proportions.
Did you see in the March issue of “Church Life” or in the Milwaukee Journal the newspaper reporter’s account of Rev. Charles W. Boardman? Mr. Boardman was minister of the Congregational Church at Fort Atkinson. He was then sixty three years of age - approximately the age of the late President Roosevelt. He was preaching each Sunday from a wheel chair, for he was stricken with that strange and progressive disease which cost the life of Lou Gehrig. But the people of his congregation and community spoke with glowing pride of their minister’s strength and service - and that of his wife.
The trouble was real. It was a definite, diagnosed disease of the body that got steadily worse and that finally took his life. Mr. and Mrs. Boardman both knew it, and everyone else did too. Yet the reporter wrote that “this minister is down in the books as the most courageous man the reporter has met. He is not afraid.” “Make the most of this worldly life,” says the pastor, “confident of tomorrow.”
And who better illustrates this attitude of dealing with trouble than the late Franklin D. Roosevelt? Blighted and crippled with poliomyelitis when in the prime of adult manhood, he faced what would have invalided most men for the balance of life. He undoubtedly did take intelligent thought of his “tomorrow.” But he obviously did not let worry or discouragement get him down. With a body so handicapped that a whole nation for years avoided photographing his efforts to walk - and that in a age of merciless exposure of every detail that people consume as “news” - Mr. Roosevelt became governor of a great state. And then, though he had failed of election to the nation’s vice-presidency during his earlier health and vigor, he was elected to its presidency in his crippled condition. He has met the demands of the same office for thrice the term that has sapped the life out of more than one of our presidents. He has met the panicky fear of jobless, crashing depression with contagious courage. He has led the nation in warfare with powers that boasted the superiority of sheer physical strength in the individual and state. Surely his stamina and ability must have been due, in magnificent measure, to freedom from the ravages of useless worry.
It is entirely in keeping with his character that one of his favorite hymns should have been that which includes the lines:
Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
3) A third thing we may do with our troubles is to be reconciled to them - not to bow in weak submission to their evil, but to learn to live with them.
We must never surrender hope. That is utter defeat. But victory can come in spite of troubles - through troubles!
Reconciliation means to be restored to harmony, to be adjusted, to be pacified, friendly. Humor helps a lot at this point.
A distinguished actor, Junius Brutus Booth, had a broken nose. A gushing lady once said to him, “You’re such a wonderful actor, Mr. Booth. But to be perfectly frank with you, I can’t get over your broken nose.” “Can’t get over my nose?” he replied. “Of course not, the bridge is gone.” This kind of reconciliation helps greatly in getting along with people.
Abraham Lincoln at one time had a broken down horse. On it, he rode over to see an uncle who had been quarreling with a neighbor for 15 years. “Well, now, Uncle Tommy,” said Abe, “you see this horse of mine? He isn’t as good a horse as I could straddle, and I sometimes get out of patience with him, but I know his faults. He does fairly well as horses go, and it might take me a long time to get used to some other horse’s faults. For all horses have faults. You and Uncle Jimmy just put up with each other as I do with my horse.”
The time came when he might have substituted the word “wife.” Or she, like so many of our wives, might have made the statement, using the word “husband.” So it may be with “friend” or “neighbor.”
We can become reconciled (remember what it means! not resigned but adapted) to our troubles and our weaknesses, by so putting ourselves in the service of God that our weaknesses become His strength.
The apostle Paul labored all his life with some affliction which he referred to only as a “thorn in his flesh.” We don’t know what it was. It may have been epilepsy or malaria or a bodily deformity. We are not told. Whatever it was, it was not removed, although Paul had prayed repeatedly about it. But, knowing that God could use his affliction for better purposes than self-pity, Paul endured it for Christ’s sake, in a way that turned it into strength.
4) One more thing about getting the best of our troubles: We overcome them by accepting them, sometimes by defeating them but always by transcending them.
A little girl saw President Lincoln for the first time. After sitting on his knee and chatting merrily, she said unexpectedly to her father, “O Daddy! He isn’t ugly at all; he’s just beautiful!” (Parents can understand the spot in which careless conversation, plus the unrestrainable frankness of a little child can sometimes put us.) But the child was right. Lincoln did have a beauty of face and character that transcended the fact that his form and face was far from that of a Greek god!
The transcending of difficulties demands greatness of soul. We see it in the immortal Lincoln. You are doubtless familiar with that splendid story of him concerning a woman who complained bitterly when he spoke kindly to some Confederate soldiers. How could he do so when they were his enemies? His reply is an all-time classic: “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
The means for transcending our difficulties come from faith in God. Unaided, man always ends in the mire. The Psalmist puts it this way: “Thou which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me safe again from the depths of the earth.” [Psalm 71: 20].
The way out of our troubles appears as we discover the nearness of God through the spirit of the Christ who said: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” [Matthew 11: 28]. The yoke he offers us is a kindly one, and his burdens, light.
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, April 15, 1945
Wisconsin Rapids, June 19, 1949