"Getting Treasures from Your Troubles"
Sunday, September 9, 2001
A certain organization offered a reward of $5,000 for wolves, provided they
were captured alive. This amount of money turned Sam and Jed into fortune hunters. For days they searched the mountains and forests looking for these valuable wolves. As they slept one night and dreamed of the possible fortune, Sam woke up and saw that fifty wolves surrounded them. As Sam watched the wolves' flaming eyes and bared teeth, he nudged his friend and said, "Jed, wake up! We're rich!" Obviously, Sam hoped to get a treasure from the trouble that surrounded them.
Some people get the treasure of strength from their troubles. The next time you see the TV program "Believe It or Not," realize that it all started with a lucky break. Robert Leroy Ripley dreamed of pitching in the major leagues. While he was playing his first professional game, Ripley broke his arm. After that "lucky break," he turned to drawing cartoons and discovered a strength he had yet to develop fully. Beginning at age sixteen, Ripley held jobs as a sports cartoonist with several San Francisco newspapers. In 1918, Ripley drew his first "Believe It or Not" cartoon. Out of the trouble of a baseball injury came the treasure of Ripley's life work.
Other people get the treasure of sympathy for others from their troubles. I have always been amazed at the treasures that flowed from the pen of Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish novelist who only lived for forty-four years (1850-1894). All his life he had trouble with illness. He wrote many of his books (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) from a sick bed. Stevenson once saw a man abusing a dog. Since he had known suffering himself, he sympathized with the suffering dog. When the owner of the dog said that he would treat his dog as he wished, Stevenson roared, "It's not your dog. It's God's dog, and I'm here to protect it." The Apostle Paul wrote, "God helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of trouble" (2 Corinthians 1:4, TEV).
Still others get the treasure of surrendered illusions from their troubles. If you begin with the illusion that life is fair, then you'll end up disillusioned. Neither Judaism nor Christianity at its best encourages such a naïve belief. Was life fair to Jesus of Nazareth, or to the long line of God's prophets (better translated "spokesmen") in which line Jesus stood? Religion at its best is not an opiate for the masses, but a stimulus to adventuresome living.
