A young Persian prince, about to ascend the throne, was acutely aware of his need for more knowledge and wisdom. He summoned his philosophers and told them to write a history of the human race. They began at once. Twenty years later they presented the king with the fruits of their research – six thousand volumes. Too busy then to read so many books the king order the scholars to condense their findings into one book. Another twenty years passed, and, at last, they presented the kind with the book he’d asked for. But the king was not too old and sick to read the book. From his death-bed he looked up at his scholars and cried ‘Then shall I die without knowing the history of humankind?’ ‘Sir’, replied one of the wise men, ‘I will sum it up for you in a few words, “They were born; they suffered; they died”.’

Suffering, trouble, adversity is not just something that happens to other people. No one escapes trouble. M. Scott Peck earned himself a bestseller (The Road Less Traveled) reminding us that ‘Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.’

How we handle trouble determines our quality of life. Trouble is inevitable, yes, but it’s also neutral! It can make us or break us. An old proverb says ‘The same sun that hardens the clay melts the wax.’ Out culture tends – with the help of the advertising, medical and insurance industries – to encourage us to believe that life can be trouble-free. Trouble is an unwelcome intruder into our peaceful existence, to be either avoided, or at best tolerated.

The Judeo-Christian Scriptures (The Bible) seem to suggest that ‘what we do to life is more important than what life does to us.’ Several writers even affirm that suffering is to be welcomed. St. Paul, for example, had a positive rather than a negative view of trouble: ‘We can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles’ (Romans 5:3, Phillips). Why? ‘Suffering produces endurance; endurance produces character. And character produces hope.’

What would he know of suffering? In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 he reminds us that he was often close to death; eight times various authorities whipped him; he was stoned; shipwrecked three times (and once adrift at sea for a night and a day); in regular danger from floods, robbers, religious zealots and pagans; let down by his false friends; he lived a life of hard toil; regularly endured sleepless nights; and suffered hunger, thirst, inadequate clothing and shelter. And he seemed to have a chronic physical ailment, his ‘thorn in the flesh’.

So how did this remarkable man learn to turn disaster into triumph?

[1] Trouble taught him patient endurance (Romans 5:3). Romans is Paul’s magnum opus. In the first four chapters he unpacks the ‘Good News’ – that God’s coming in Jesus Christ has addressed our greatest need: how we can be ‘reconciled’ to God, to each other, and to ourselves. Result? ‘Peace with God, grace (we are fully accepted by God in spite of our messed-up lives), and ultimately eternal life.’ So our troubles are temporary, and not worth comparing to the ‘glory’ of living in and with God – forever. But we are not masochists, enjoying pain; or Stoics, simply gritting our teeth and enduring it. Nor is ‘endurance’ simply passive resignation. It’s rather an aggressive approach to adversity – like Beethoven’s response to his deafness: ‘I will take life by the throat!’ A chronic sufferer had a friend say ‘Affliction colours life, doesn’t it?’ To which she replied ‘Yes, and I propose to choose the colour!’ (Remember Father Damien’s ‘We lepers’?). Trouble is inevitable, and when it comes we handle it aggressively.

[2] When we meet trouble head-on, our character is ‘refined’: the word describes the toughness of a seasoned veteran. So athletes push through ‘the pain barrier’ (yesterday I read about Tyler Hamilton finishing the latest Tour de France stage in seventh place, despite riding with a broken collar-bone!). A biography of Abraham Lincoln impressed me deeply: how did he become so magnanimous? He was born on the wrong side of the tracks, and suffered defeat after defeat en route to the Presidency. He fell in love with a girl – and she died. He spent years paying off the debts of a worthless partner. But he didn’t hate anyone, never sought revenge, and never gave up. Lincoln wove his adversities into a tapestry of character. The best lessons in life are learned in the school of adversity.

[3] Finally, our troubles are endured, and our character is refined against the backdrop of ‘Hope’ – God’s promise that a glorious eternal future awaits us. The Christian idea of hope is that God is with us now in our troubles, and will be with us forever. How can we know this? Paul says God pours love into our hearts. That’s why faith, hope and love are the greatest human virtues.

I just read this in a sermon on ‘The Lessons of Adversity’. ‘I should like to have been at the University of Glasgow the day Helen Keller received an honorary doctorate. Blind and deaf from infancy, if any situation looked hopeless, hers did. But she had hope, and patient endurance, and character. And so did her teacher, Anne Sullivan. And on the day she was awarded that honorary degree she was one of the most radiant and useful personalities of her generation. As they sang the national anthem her companion spelled into her hand what was going on. Later, through the lips of her companion she made a brief response. These were her closing words: “Darkness and silence need not bar the progress of the immortal spirit”. There was thunderous applause, which only she could not hear.

‘Hopelessness? Helen Keller did not know the meaning of the word! Neither did Paul. And neither would we if we could learn from our adversities the fortitude, integrity and hope that they can teach us.’ (1)

A young lady was just eighteen when she contracted a dreadful illness. To save her life, the doctor said he must amputate her feet. This he did, but the disease spread further, so he took off her legs to the knees. Later he amputated her thighs. Then it broke out again in her hands and arms: first one arm, then the other were taken off, right up to the shoulders. She was left with only her trunk. For fifteen years she lay there. The walls of her room were covered with Bible texts, all of them affirming God’s gifts of love and peace and power. That woman mediated such grace from her room that hundreds of people were converted to faith in Christ through her letters.

How did she write? A carpenter friend fitted an instrument to her shoulder into which a pen could be inserted. We write with fingers, hand and arm: she had to use her whole body, but her writing became as beautiful as copperplate. She eventually collected fifteen hundred letters telling of people blessed by her. When asked how she did it she smiled and replied: ‘Well, you know, Jesus said that those who believed in him, from within them would flow rivers of living water. I believed in him – that’s all!’

By (Rev. Dr.) Rowland Croucher, Glen Eira Christian Community Church (affiliated with the Baptist Churches of Victoria). We meet 10 am Sundays in the Kilvington Grammar School, Lillimur Rd., Ormond.

(1) Roy de Brand, ‘The Lessons of Adversity’, unpublished sermon.

For more, see ‘The Christian Life Wasn’t Meant to be Easy!’

Rowland Croucher may be contacted by email –