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Everyone
has times when life is hard. Times when
life blindsides you, and it’s all you can do to put a smile on your face and
act normal around people. Times when you
really do want to trust God, but in the back of your mind there are the
questions “Does He really know what
He’s doing?” and “Why is this happening to me?”
Hard times
like these are pivotal to our lives and our faith. It’s a fork in the road – will you cling to
your belief in God, or will you turn your back on Him?
Many lies
have cropped up concerning tough times, and at one point I fell for them. It took me a long time to recognize these
lies for what they were.
Lie #1: God has forgotten you.
God has promised never to leave you, and He
will never break that promise. In 2 Timothy 2:13, Paul writes, “if we are
faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” He can not deny His Spirit within those who
have called on His name for salvation!
If He can’t deny us, how then can He forget us?
Lie #2: You can’t ask for help. For one thing, that would be weak. For another, God gave you this time; handing it off to somebody else like that is a cop-out.
This lie gains its power from the fact that
most of us don’t really want to tell people that we’ve got problems. Our self-sufficient mindset rebels against
the very thought of showing weakness like this.
Really, pride is most of what keeps this lie alive. God never said, “You must get through life on
your own.” When God made man, He said, “It
is not good for man to be alone.” That
holds true today – it is not good for a person to be alone, to have no one to
talk to, pray with, even vent toward. A
friend can pray for you and give you wise counsel and support. A Godly friend (or sibling, or parent, or
cousin…) can help you get through.
Lie #3: God is getting back at you for something.
God does not get back at His children! It doesn’t matter what you did last month,
God does not retaliate when you sin against Him. Matthew 5:45 says “For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous.”
Rain falls on the righteous, too – and if you’re a Christian,
He sees you as righteous. He sends hard
times for our good, not because we deserve them. If you’re going through something right now,
you are not being punished – it’s quite the opposite: God, in His infinite wisdom, knows that you
need to go through this time for your own good.
There are
also great truths that can help you get through hard times with your faith
intact. These are some of the things I
have learned along the way:
Truth #1: This time is growing your faith more than anything else could.
Last June/July,
God allowed circumstances into my life which really caused me to question my
ideas about God and what I could trust Him with. For a month and a half, I tried to understand
what was happening and how I could still trust that the Lord still knew what He
was doing.
Now, nearly a year later, I
wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.
My faith in God is stronger than ever before, because of my time of
testing. God uses these times to
strengthen us in ways we can’t see or understand.
Truth #2: It’s okay to cry.
For a long time, I resolved never, ever to
cry when I was going through a tough time – that was a manifestation of a lack
of belief, right? To cry was weak,
childish, and foolish. But then I
remembered: Jesus cried.
Since then I’ve come to believe that if you
truly want to honor God, even your tears will be honoring; in a way, you’re
saying “I can’t handle this,” which gives Him opportunity to step in.
Truth #3: God will get you through this.
God draws near to hurting people; I felt Him
most strongly when I was at my lowest point.
When we’re so broken down there’s not much of us left, we give Him the
opportunity to step in and build us up into something infinitely better than we
were to start with. You will hit hard
times, but God will always see you through!
In the words of my “online friend” Ethan H:
“God is good. Always. Even when it's hard. Especially even when it's hard.”
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Laura Owens is a homeschooled sophomore from the East Coast. She is the third-youngest of eight children, and she loves every minute of it! When she's not doing schoolwork or working at her part-time job, she can be found speaking Spanish, reading, or writing.
Laura Owens is a homeschooled sophomore from the East Coast. She is the third-youngest of eight children, and she loves every minute of it! When she's not doing schoolwork or working at her part-time job, she can be found speaking Spanish, reading, or writing.