Life is trouble

Life is trouble from the first slap on our backside to the last weary sigh that escapes our lips. Pain, sorrow and loneliness is often our lot in this life and it seems at time to have no meaning (remember Macbeth’s diatribe in Act V, Scene 5?).
In Psalm 91 the writer does not deny such suffering, but chooses to focus upon the vertical (yeah, there I go again) to the God who does care for us, even when all manner of suffering and horror overruns life. Taking what is written in Psalm 91 someone could think that God is promising deliverance from all trouble, but that isn’t the case. As Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) once put it, “Don’t take life seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.” We all will die; some illness or injury will be the final one we have to face and we will die. So, what is the psalmist talking about?
Trials and tragedy will come to everyone on this planet sooner or later and it is a ‘normal’ part of existence in the world as it exists now. The believer in Christ, however, has the reassurance of the Word that such will in no way separate them from God (Romans 8:35-39); we will either escape (temporarily) such, go through it and survive or our life will end here, but the presence of God with us will not change. The concluding part of the psalm (vss. 14-16) reiterates how God will hear our cry and will answer us, will be with us in trouble and will rescue us. The writer concludes with, “With long life I will satisfy him and let him see my salvation.” When the believer comes to that final illness or injury and their eyes close on this world, they open to see His salvation in fact not by faith as they see the One who loves them welcome them Home.