When I grew up we had a relatively new proverb: “Life is not a pony farm.” I guess it came up when, in the 1970s and 1980s, more and more children, especially girls, had their blissful regular riding lessons, holidays on a pony farm or in some cases even their own horse or pony. It is beautiful to develop a relationship with an animal, whether it is a small pet or a big strong horse.

Many movies and TV series are built around animals as well, and often even have a voice speak their imagined thoughts, which is called anthropomorphism.

As a child of the 1960s, I loved to watch Lassie and I wanted to have my hair cut like little Timmy. While my parents did not want any pets when I was in the age (we were seven children, which was enough in their opinion) I had friends who had pets, and I loved visiting them and playing with the dogs or cats. It is a healthy thing to grow up with friends and animals.

Life can be challenging

However, life is not just blissful. That is what the modern proverb means. Life throws curve balls at times and there are problems and disappointments, and we have to learn to deal with them as well. Life is not a pony farm!

It would be childish to expect everything always go our way. Even the greatest biblical characters had problems to deal with, overcome difficulties and learn to live with disappointments.

Actually from the very beginning, man had to learn that life can be tough. Those biblical figures were not much different from many of us. In fact, their stories are, in a way, about you and me, our own struggles, our ups and downs, to learn from them not to give up, and instead to rely on God and his promises rather than our own plans.

Some of them had to be very patient and wait a long time for their dreams and hopes to come true.

What makes us human?

The story of Adam and Eve in Eden wants to explain that being human, knowing what is good and evil, comes with a price. They had to learn that they would certainly die, which means, they became certain that day, when they ate of the tree, that they would die one day.

By knowing about good and evil they developed self-consciousness. They suddenly had to consider the consequences of their actions, their decisions, both the good decisions and the bad ones.

And with self-consciousness comes the idea of non-existence. They first tried to avoid the confrontation with this new reality. They were hiding in paradise and were ashamed. They felt naked and vulnerable and thus were scared.

Everything is interconnected and has consequences

Once they fully understood the consequences of their deeds, they had to learn that life meant hard work and at times pain. That certain death was all present. People die old, but people also die young, animals die and plants wither.

They had to learn how to sow and harvest, how to store for the winder and keep enough seeds for the next sowing season. They learnt that giving birth to children was a painful and had consequences. They had the major disappointment about their sons, Cain and Abel. They lost Abel to murder and Cain, because he had to flee after the murder.

Important is how they dealt with those setbacks. They did not give up. They actually had more children. Children are the ultimate sign of hope and courage. The human family continued to exist and grow.

Noah lived in a time of disorder, an age of outrage. People just did not do what was right, but acted selfish and godless. He built a huge wooden refuge for his family and all kinds of animals. But it surely was no pony farm.

He withdrew from everybody, closed the windows to the world, and in the end his family were the only people who survived the flood. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like on the ark, being the only one who survived disaster.

Immediate gratification versus patience

The next big figure was Abraham. He left his home and lived as a stranger in a country he felt God had provided for him. But he never owned any part of the land until he bought the grave for his wife Sarah.

Abraham had to wait a very long time for God to fulfil his promise to him, an heir. Still, he believed God’s promise that he would have a child with Sarah. He was disappointed again and again.

At one point he even thought he had to find a different solution and had a child with the maidservant Hagar. Ismael was born, and Abraham loved him, but he was not the child God had promised.

The story says Abraham was close to 100 and his wife was 90 when they finally had Isaac. Think of that long wait. Abraham is always portrayed in the Bible as a man of character and virtue and he still had to go through a lot.

Think of all the disappointed hopes he had to overcome. They could have given up many times, but they continued to live and do their part. Do your best, leave the rest.

If you think this is the end of the Abraham story, think again. A couple of years later Abraham was convinced God wanted him to bring Isaac as a sacrifice to God. The son he had waited for so long, the son he loved so much!

I am sure he did not tell Sarah his plans when he left for Mount Moriah. It was the hardest test in his life. In the end God spared Isaac’s life.

Years later Abraham lost Sarah, the love of his life. Near Hebron he bought a field with a cave to have a grave for her. He grieved and mourned her for quite a while, then he found new love in Keturah and had six more children.

Life has its ups and downs

I could go on with Isaac’s children Jacob and Esau, Jacob’s struggles and with the next generation with Joseph, who had so many obstacles to overcome before he became the second in command of Egypt and was able to rescue his family from a famine.

Then their descendants became slaves in Egypt, and suffered until Moses fled them to the promised land, which he would never enter. Moses had so many disappointments. He had been privileged growing up in the king’s palace, but had to learn a lot about real life, and that even people set free from slavery can be challenging to say the least.

Modern times are not that different

When I compare our modern times, our problems, as different as they may be to those back then, I find that every generation has its set of challenges just as each and every one of us has our own set of challenges and problems. The biblical stories give me hope though that our God has solutions to problems, sometimes different from what we expect.

He gave his only Son and allowed him being crucified so that we could approach him without the fear and shame Adam and Eve felt after the Fall.

Life surely is no pony farm, but we are not alone. When we mass up, there is forgiveness. God continues to provide for us and he loves us.

We can be sure of the promise of forgiveness. God loves us so much that he took away the fear of non-existence by offering us eternal life in his presence even if we die, which we certainly will. Until then we have brothers and sisters on our side, who can be instruments of God’s will to help.

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s