To be human is to be in trouble, let's face it. It's a fact. When we look at literature as far back as we can go in human experience, we find that people have faced deep troubles and have suffered. It might be the trouble that comes with illness, death or it might be natural disasters, relational problems; it has been there with us from the start and that selfishness, that self-centeredness, that godliness, that desire to be at the center of all things, that the Christian church calls sin, this sin has always made it worse. It has brought more suffering on to us and brought suffering on to other people. That is what news is full of. News is full of trouble. It is full of murders, scandals, illnesses, accidents, broken families, national disasters, big problems and little problems. It doesn't matter. One way or another in our life at just about any time we've got trouble. When we are in trouble we suffer. That includes all the pain and all the questions and all the disorientation that comes with it. We constantly move from one experience to another experience, job to job, place to place, relationship to relationship, looking for a place where you really feel like it is home, where you feel accepted, where you feel that meshing of who you are to the fulfillment that you expect from that and when it doesn't come around and when you can't hold to the joy in that situation you move on, and so we live inside of a culture that people are constantly accumulating things and trying to live for today even if it means mortgaging some of the future. IS THIS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT?    

     God has set out a destination for us, a destination that is beyond death; a destination that is outside of life as we know it, and He gives direction to this life right now. Where are these directions? We know that we walk through life with a place in mind, a direction in mind, but also we walk through with God as our companion. And so as pilgrims we know that we experience good things from God and this experience of God's goodness along with the expectation that God will be good in the future is part of what brings us joy. And so even though hard times come, there is joy in life, and it's a joy that can be deep because it begins to change us from the inside out. HOW DO YOU GET THIS JOY? Click the picture above for HOPE. Let the journey begin!  

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