Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.
Psalm 55:22 KJV
“This too shall pass” is not found in the Bible. It’s in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Scripture does offer comfort and encouragement by expressing this truth in different words.
“It came to pass” appears thousands of times in the King James Version. One man testified, “When I’m pestered with trouble and difficulty, I pick up the blessed book of the living God, and I never read very far before I come across those words ‘It came to pass.’ Then I say ‘praise the Lord! I’m glad it didn’t come to stay, it came to pass!’” Though a misinterpretation of the literal meaning, truth he celebrated instills hope in hearts going through hard times.
The apostle Paul was inspired to write, “Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now, rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18 NLT).
Though life is pleasant in many ways, sometimes we “walk in the midst of trouble” (Psalm 138:7). Yet difficulties are parenthetical—they’ll all be behind us when we live in a tearless, painless, deathless, sinless place.
Gracie Allen wrote “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” Troubles we endure now will soon be history. Glory will make us forget gloom. Paradise will eradicate pain. All creation will celebrate total freedom, alongside the redeemed.
We should not let winter freeze our hope—spring’s just around the corner. When God’s New World Symphony is debuted, the universe will stand to its feet in thunderous applause.
In his book The Passing of the Night, Robinson Risner, senior POW in Vietnam, recounts seeing a single blade of grass through a crack in his cell wall that sustained him for months. If we treasure the promises of God, faith will sustain us as we travel rough roads.
“Well get through this together” is something we hear frequently during this COVID-19 pandemic. There’s comfort in shared frustration, but we have a Helper infinitely better than other humans. To get through this, we can do better than a DIY approach—we can draw nearer to God in prayer and find strength and courage. After this unnerving time has come to pass, we will praise the Lord for helping us. We might even say to one another, "I'm glad it didn’t come to stay!”
(c) Johnny R. Almond
Pastor, Hull’s Memorial Baptist Church
Author, Gentle Whispers from Eternity
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