Healthy living

Troubles can help us. The most unsettling times in life often turn out to be the most fruitful. Only as we look back on a time of trouble do we recognise what scripture calls ‘the treasures of darkness’. When life is unsettling it gives us a powerful reminder of how useless it is to put one’s trust in one’s job or bank balance or popularity or whatever. No one likes a time of trouble but such times show both our true worth and our true faith. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of God shaking the world ‘in order that what cannot be shaken may remain’ It goes on ‘let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken’. When we look back on troublesome times through which we have kept out faith in God this scripture comes alive in our experience. Troubles remind us to take the eternal perspective of faith, to look beyond the up’s and down’s of life to our true security in the unshakeable kingdom of God. They shake away all false supports leaving believers with a fa