Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28)

A few years ago, a rather well-known preacher wrote a book called Shaping a Successful Life, and as is customary in the book business, his publisher arranged a series of interviews on radio and television as a way of promoting sales of the book.

Now, amid everything he had written on being successful, he also included one chapter on coping with troubles and tragedies in life, and to this man’s surprise, everyone who interviewed him wanted to focus on that one chapter. Even the Christian talk show hosts had a hard time reconciling the idea of success with having problems in life. One of them even asked, "If people are going to have troubles in life, why should they follow Christ?"

Of course, many people (…