Scripture Passage
Sermon Text
Life’s Difficulties
When life is difficult, we get a different perspective – it gives us a new angle to see our life. We see something that we didn’t see before. We don’t choose life’s difficulties, they just come without our invitation or permission. What we are experiencing right now just came to us, giving us no choice to choose. We could never imagine that the whole city could be locked up like this and we would have worship services through computer. This is a surreal experience, but it just came. We can complain all we want and we can blame some people, but does that help? Does that make us feel better? It doesn’t help, does it? It just makes us angrier and more depressed. We know that this difficult time will pass. All difficulties will pass eventually. But the remaining question is what kind of person we will come out to be, what kind of person will we become, after everything is over. Will we come out as people with bitterness, anger, and lots of negativity? As very unhappy people? Or will we come out as people who have more compassion and a deeper understanding of those who are less fortunate than us?
Finding a New Perspective in Difficult Times
When life is difficult, I think that that is a great time for us, a great opportunity for us, to deeply reflect on our life again. Stop and think! Yes, that is what we should do, stop and think. That was the advice of the author of Ecclesiastes. He said, “On the day of prosperity be joyful, and on the day of adversity consider.” Consider, think, reflect! Find a new perspective!
Through today’s scripture, two passages came to me for all of us to reflect on. The first one is verse 21. It says, “Your faith and hope are set on God.” Through this pandemic, I realized how important it is to have faith and hope. Faith and hope kept me from insanity, kept all of us from insanity. In ordinary times, we didn’t really see the practical aspect of faith and hope. But when we went through these difficulties and pandemic, we realize how practical, how important, faith and hope are. Before they were just nice words, but now, it is important for us to keep ourselves strong. Without faith and hope, it is hard to survive with a positive attitude. We can easily let ourselves be completely filled with dark and negative thoughts.
Cultivating our Faith and Hope
But I realized that faith and hope are not something that you can have just because you want to have them. They have to be cultivated within you. If you don’t have them, you don’t have them. Dalai Lama said, “Trees with strong roots will survive the storm, but you cannot build roots when the storm arises from the horizon.” Roots have to be cultivated – faith and hope are not something that you can just have because you want them, they have to be cultivated within us.
Let us try to see every situation with the attitude of faith and hope. Then slowly, faith and hope will become reality within us, they will be cultivated within us.
Tell yourself, “God will keep us safe, God will show us the way out, and God will give us strength.” Let me say that again. God will keep us safe, God will show us the way, and God will keep us strong. When you live your life with this kind of attitude, faith and hope will slowly be cultivated within you, and you will become stronger. You will have the strength to overcome your difficulties.
Love One Another
The second thing that came to me was verse 22. “Love one another deeply from the heart.” Through this pandemic, we realize how important it is to love one another. Simple words of kindness, warm greetings, considerate gestures, all these things become so important.
I see a lot of people on the edge; we need more kindness, more understanding, more forgiveness, and more giving. Frontline workers, they love people and so they risk their lives to save them. Thank you all. Yesterday I went out onto my balcony around 7:30 and they started banging. Musicians want to support them with their musical talents and raise fund for the hard works of the frontline workers. We all have to work for each other and help each other. I see people help each other. That’s how we are supposed to live. We have been so indifferent in our modern life. Now this pandemic teaches us that we need to help each other to survive. How much we have realized that we live on love, not just on food alone. We live on love. Our life becomes abundant not when we have lots of things, but when we receive lots of love and give lots of love. That’s when we become abundant.
The Three Pillars of Life
Come to think of it, all these things that I mentioned, are three things: faith, hope, and love. These three things are the three pillars of life. On these three things, our life should be built on – faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. As St. Paul said, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
These three things should be always with us. When these three things are abundant within our heart, then we start receiving blessings from God, and then our hearts will be filled with thankfulness, joy, and the peace that the world can not give. These are the blessings that God grants to us.
Surviving in the Midst of Life’s Cruelty
My friend, life is not always kind to us. We cannot even expect that from life. Sometimes I feel that life is cruel. Yes, life can be cruel. And these days, I feel that life is so sad. We have enough of trouble of dealing with this virus. As though it is not enough, we hear the news of 22 innocent people being killed by this man who is troubled, in Nova Scotia. I see video clips of children going to nursing homes to see their dying, lonely parents. They can not even go in, and through the window they say “hi”. When I wrote this part, I cried a lot. It is sad – life can be quite sad. I see their aching hearts and the painful loneliness of the elderly parents.
Life doesn’t come on a silver platter. We try to bring life on a silver platter, but life simply doesn’t come on a silver platter. Sometimes it comes as darkness, other times as a storm, and still other times as a whip and tears. We can survive in the midst of all this because we have faith, hope, and love.
My friends, let us always keep these three things in our heart. Then we can see light in the darkness, calmness in the storm, and even smile in the midst of deep sadness and sorrow.
May God be with you and bless your family.
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