Managing LIfe In This Troubled World

What does it mean to manage one's life? Or, let me ask this, what do you think of when you hear those words? For many people life management means situation management, or stress management. If things are going smoothly, we assume life is being managed.

There is a verse of scripture, John 16:33, where Jesus spoke these words: In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. We might not typically associate this reference to tribulation with daily stress; particularly we in the west. We tend to think of biblical tribulation as global catastrophes and religious persecutions. It certainly must include those. However, I think if we understand the point of Christ's words, we can also think of trying situations as part of the world He has overcome. And, what does Jesus mean when He claims to have overcome the world? Aren't we still troubled?

Managing life means managing life's process. In order to manage the process of a thing, say for example a business, one must first understand its purpose. What is it? What does it do? If managing life means managing situations, managing stress, managing tribulations, then don't we have to ask if these things have a purpose in life? So, let us examine the purpose of life and the role of tribulation.

A scripture verse that pertains to this is found in Matthew 6: 22-23. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is single, your body is full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. Therefore, if the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

This verse implies that perspective is absolutely fundamental to understanding. So, let us examine the role of purpose of life and the role of tribulation.

First of all, what is Jesus saying? The last line might seem confusing. It has not always been interpreted correctly. It basically says that if your lens is evil, so that even what you call light is actually darkness, then your darkness is doubly dark. That in itself is a sobering thought. Why, though, does Jesus present singleness of vision as the opposite of evil? Indeed the Greek word used here, haplous, is rightly interpreted as single. It might seem that it would have been more correct to use something like divided vision or divided heart to oppose the single eye. To suggest here that the choice is one of either singleness of vision or evil, seems a bit dramatized. But of course, it is not.

To get a purer sense of what life is about, let’s look at the beginning of life. It is all there. (Genesis 1) In the beginning we have God. Then we have light and darkness. We could stop there, because it’s that simple. With God, if it isn’t light, it’s dark. The rest of the text builds upon and affirms that simple fact. We then have man in the image of God. And then we have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If it is not good it is evil. If it does not reflect God’s nature, it is not God’s nature.

Man is given moral choice for one reason: to know good from evil. In other words, to know God. Not merely to know about God, or to acknowledge Him, but to know Him. That is, to experience Him intimately; the goal being that of the body of Christ, maturing and becoming the family of God. A Christian man asked me regarding the significance of all the detailed laws written of in Leviticus. Having never studied the details of Levitical law, as a laymen I could only imagine that God wanted the early Jews to understand how completely He must saturate our thinking and our living. Again, if it does not reflect God’s nature, it is not God.

Now, note that Adam and Eve did not eat of the tree of tree knowledge of evil. They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We must assume that before they disobeyed and suffered the consequences, they had no knowledge of either. The knowledge of good comes with the knowledge of evil. The desire to know God comes with the the distaste of what is not God.

What is tribulation? It is discomfort. Indeed it is the result of sin. However, it serves a purpose. The knowledge of good and evil, moral choice in other words, requires a dynamic mechanism; the proverbial rock and hard place. The mechanism consists of the our corruptible flesh and the law. We were created and clothed in flesh, guided by appetites, susceptible to desires and lusts. And then the law was given to awaken our conscience to the responsibility of moral choice. And for our sake the ground was cursed, so that we might feel the pain of sin. No, we were not created corrupt, but we were created corruptible - in order to facilitate moral choice. Without tribulation, there would be no distain for evil. If no distain for evil, no desire for good.

So, this is all integral to human life. In fact, it is integral to the purpose of human life. The fundamental experience of man is that of moral choice. More to the point, it is the knowledge of God. And so, in the world, in this life, we will have tribulation. Yet, we are to be of good cheer, because Christ has over come the world. In other words, we might paraphrase Christ’s words, to read, be of good cheer, for all the trials of life are now in my employ; they’re serving me in working for your good.

The knowledge of good and evil: Every situation, every conscious moment in human life, is a knowledge-of-good-and-evil moment. It is about the experience of God, in contrast to that which is not God. The line is thin. The path is straight and the gate is narrow. The eye is single or it is evil.

This is not a comforting thought. We would like to imagine that good and evil are separated by a vast no man’s land of moral gray, situation ethics. So when we go about to manage our lives, we tend to manage along lines that leverage our comfort, our safety. This is in fact a humanist lifestyle; by which I mean a lifestyle that assumes the welfare of this physical human existence to be the focus of God’s intention.

As such the managing of our lives involves the affirmation of personal beliefs about how this life should be, how it should serve us. And so personalities come into play. What are personalities? A personality is the expression of a belief system concerning one’s safety and security; one’s value, control and resources. We use personalities for protection, to govern safe degrees of vulnerability; not only in our interactions with other people, but also in our interactions with God.

The intended work of life is to know God intimately. Again, not simply knowing about, but knowing as intimately as we are known. But we don’t want to be vulnerable. We don’t want to be naked. This was true from the beginning. Once Adam and Eve were exposed to the knowledge of good they realized they were naked; not nude, but naked. They then knew they were not good. They then knew they were mortal, corruptible, unworthy. They were not rendered naked because of sin. They became aware of their mortal state because of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 3: 7,10 “The eyes of them both were opened and they knew they were naked.” “I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

Many thousands of years later we are still hiding. We don’t mind knowing about God, acknowledging His power and preeminence. We are not so ready to know God intimately, to embrace His loving purpose in our pain. Trials, tribulations have a purpose. They constitute moments of meeting God intimately. Understanding this won’t make the tribulation cease. However, it will give it meaning that will enable us to benefit from it, and to joy in it. (Romans 5:3) Isn’t it remarkable that we rejoice in physical pain, when we see it’s benefit? “No pain, no gain,” we say. Emotional pain, which is actually spiritual pain, is the same; when we understand its value, we can embrace it.

The single purpose man was given life was for man to know God; to the end that God might bring to maturity a divine family. That is the reason for the knowledge of good and evil, and of moral choice. And, it is the reason that in the world we will have tribulation. The object is complete trust; to find the goodness of God in the context every trial, His power and grace made clearer by our weakness.

As a counselor I am knowledgable of many tools for addressing the process of life: better organizational skill, oursuing goals, setting boundaries, managing relationships etc. And many (far too many) find mood altering drugs to fill in the gaps. But if we don’t understand and embrace the purpose of tribulation in our lives, in this world, then none of these tools are in reality beneficial.

Copyright©Daniel Pryor 2025

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