How To Trouble, Trouble.

How To Trouble, Trouble. Job 1:1-3NLT

A large or small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it close to your eye, and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus. Hold it at proper viewing distance, and it can be examined and properly classified. Throw it at your feet, and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway to eternity.

When it comes to God, trouble is just a tiny stone. Throw it down, and you’ll get the big picture.

Job 1:1-3NLT There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters. 3 He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area.

Trouble has a way of finding all of us. Like the rain, it falls on the just and the unjust.

Although we would love to think that Christians are exempt from trouble, that is not the case.

Job is the poster child for bad things happening to good people.

Trouble can come in the form of single catastrophe or a series of devastating events. It can announce itself with a telephone call in the wee hours of the night or turn up at an annual visit to your Doctor who delivers a serious diagnosis.

Make no mistake trouble is an equal opportunity annoyance that eventually shows up on everyone's doorstep.

In a small amount of time, Job lost everything, He lost his family, possessions, and finally he lost his health.

Again, after much trail, suffering and pain—Job 14:1NKJV “Man who is born of woman?Is of few days and full of trouble.

What did Job get to keep (other than his fault finding friends)? His God, and his wife. But he also kept his faith in God. Now before you throw too many stones at Jobs wife, just remember, she had to watch all these troubles come upon her husband—Job. P.H

While we can’t prevent trouble from making an appearance, we can learn how to handle it when it comes our way.

We can learn to, trouble—trouble. P.H

Indeed, the Bible says, Proverbs 22:3AMP A prudent and far-sighted person sees the evil [of sin] and hides himself [from it],?But the naive continue on and are punished [by suffering the consequences of sin].

There is an interesting story in the Bible about handling trouble from the life of King Hezekiah, who ruled Judah about 700 years before Jesus Christ.

During the 14th year of his reign, King Sennacherib of the expanding Assyrian Empire attacked and captured all fortified cities of Judah and was poised and determined to capture Jerusalem as well.

Needless to say, King Hezekiah was deeply distressed by Sennacherib’s actions. He was even more troubled upon receiving— Sennacherib’s taunting and blasphemous letter, which insulted him, belittled God, and boasted of his plan to take the city of Jerusalem.

The Bible states, Isaiah 37:14-20NLT After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: 16 “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 17 Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God.

18 “It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. 19 And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 20 Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.

Indeed, trouble—with a T, had showed up at not only Hezekiah's door, but also at Judah’s door.

Sennacherib, the conquering king of Assyria had just defeated and taken over multiple cities in the Mesopotamia region.

Now he was spewing out threats against Jerusalem. Yet in the midst of these turn of events, King Hezekiah gives us a vivid picture of how to respond to trouble. —How to trouble trouble.

Therefore, I give you a four-step-plan for handling trouble:

1. First, King Hezekiah went to God’s house. (For every believer, the house of God shouldn’t be an option).

Again, Isaiah 37:14NKJV And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord…