Inventing Difficulties

I. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Tom Sawyer set out together to rescue the captive slave, Jim.

A. However, their grand plans soon led to disappointment. As they scouted the situation, they found that the rescue would pose no difficulties at all. Vainly, they tried to figure out some way to make the situation more complicated and interesting. Finally, Tom remarked, “Why, … Huck, it’s the stupidest arrangement I ever did see. You got to invent ALL the difficulties.”

B. I think we laugh largely because we recognize a true facet of human nature in the boys’ actions––mankind insists upon worrying about everything.

II. In this, like in so many other things, the Christian needs to be different from the world.

A. This was one of those basics that Jesus spoke upon at some length in His Sermon on the Mount, recognizing that man so often falls into the trap of worrying. [Read Matt 6:25-34.]

In this passage, Jesus promises that God will take care of our needs if we will make serving Him, rather than pursuing those needs, our first priority. He also gives us several reasons that we should not waste our time and energy in worry. First, the things that we worry most often about are not even the things that really matter (25b). Secondly, do you really think that God, having created us, won’t take care of our needs (26)? To doubt that God will do so is to display a lack of faith in God’s keeping of His promises (30). Thirdly, worrying doesn’t change anything anyway (27). Finally, Jesus says that while such worry characterizes the worldly people around us, we should be different, trusting God to take care of those worries as we devote ourselves to what really matters (31-33).

B. Peter speaks as well about this great difference in perspective that should exist between us and those of the world. 2 Pet 3:10-14 reads in the NKJV, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.”

Peter says, (a) if the only certainty about this life and this world is that it will come to an end, and (b) if God has offered us a life that will not end in a new and wonderful world, then (c) our focus should not be upon this world and the things thereof, but upon ensuring that we are qualified to inherit that life (“in holy conduct and godliness” and “without spot and blameless”). And if we are doing this, he says, we should (d) be “at peace.” What sort of peace? At peace with God, our sins not creating enmity with Him. At peace with man, without strife toward those whom God has created and loves. At peace with ourselves and the world around us, not in turmoil and immersed in worry.

But notice that Peter doesn’t say this is easy. He says, “Be diligent to be found by Him in peace.” This is something that we have to work at; it requires diligence, which Webster defines as “a steady, earnest, and energetic effort.” Peace of mind doesn’t come naturally to us. We are too busy “invent[ing] all the difficulties.” As counterintuitive as it may seem, we have to work at being peaceful.

C. Notice again also that Peter ties our peacefulness to our understanding of mortality, immortality, and of heaven and the perspective which that gives us on this life. 2 Pet 3:11 says, “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be.”

In John 13 through 16, John records a long discourse that Jesus had with his disciples as He prepared them for His departure. On the one hand, He reassures them several times that even though He will die, they will see Him again and ultimately live with Him in the place to which He goes. On the other hand, He warns them repeatedly that they will be hated and persecuted.

In John 14:27 He tells them that He will give them peace, but not the kind of peace that the world is able to provide. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” It will not be a peace that comes from a lack of hardship and trials. It will be a peace that comes in spite of those hardships as they (and we) put those hardships into perspective by looking toward the heavenly reward through Christ.