Have you ever thought that? Wondered how much better things might be in life if we just lived a few hundred years ago? I know that I have! It seems like things were so much easier…. WRONG! They weren’t easier! Think of how many inventions we now have that make life easier – washing machines, cars, bicycles, airplanes, trains, phones, computers … and the list goes on and on.
But wait. Maybe they didn’t experience so much suffering as we do today. Reality check: most people died at less than half our current life span, and that was only about 200 years ago. There has always been sufferings in this “vale of tears,” this land of shadows, in which we prepare for our true and heavenly homeland.
St. Augustine once said that “you hear people complaining about this present day and age because things were so much better in former times. I wonder what would happen if they could be taken back to the days of their ancestors – would we not still hear them complaining? You may think past ages were good, but it is only because you are not living in them.”
We have been given so many blessings – our Faith in Christ Jesus, His redemptive death on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead, Hope of eternal life with God in heaven. Yes, there are trials and sufferings in every age of this world – and there always will be – but let us use those trials and sufferings to draw ever closer to the Lord Jesus, to depend more and more upon His Grace and His Mercy, and to let Him transform us and make us His witnesses in our world today!
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