shani4jc

I taught 4th grade for several years.  As a teacher, I was always on the lookout for “teacher” supplies.  One day as I prepared my classroom for the upcoming year, I came across a metal stand that you could hang chart paper from which had been thrown out by another teacher.  “I can use this,” I thought.  Her trash was going to become my treasure.  When I retrieved it from the trash, I discovered that most of the metal was quite rusted.  However, I wasn’t ready to give up on this “treasure” just yet.  I was very blessed to have an amazing friend who helped me set up my classroom each year and she had a brilliant idea.  “We can just wrap all the metal in duct tape.  You won’t even be able to tell it’s rusted!”  So, duct tape it was to the rescue!  Yellow duct tape, might I add, because that was my yellow year…all the bulletin boards had yellow paper, the take home folders were yellow, and even the truck I drove was yellow.  Anyway, the duct tape worked beautifully and I got a lot of use out of that metal stand.  I’ve often heard people say you can fix anything with duct tape, and it certainly fixed the rusting metal stand.  Even though it worked so well in this instance, I can’t agree that duct tape can fix everything.  No matter how handy it is, it can’t fix some of the problems we face every day.  It can’t fix our lonely hearts, our mountain of debt, our failing health, our loss of a loved one, our empty womb, our empty nest, our hurts, our heartaches, our failures, our addictions…the list is endless.  Now, while we may not actually try to use literal duct tape to solve our problems, we use things that are just about as effective.  Just as duct tape won’t help us, neither will alcohol, drugs, food, affairs, shopping, busyness, burying ourselves in anything but our problem…you get my drift.  We try to solve our problems with so many things that will never work…in fact, they do just the opposite…they make things worse.  There is only one thing we can count on to solve our problems and that is Jesus.  He is the answer to any difficulty we face.  Now, please don’t get this message wrong…I’m not saying that we will not have any difficulties if we follow Jesus…I’m saying that He is the answer to every difficulty we face!  His Word even tells us that we will face trials, tribulations, distress, and frustration, but it also gives us the answer to those things…the One who overcame the world.

“In this world, you WILL have trials, tribulations, distress, and frustration, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33 (emphasis mine)