Trusting God When Life Hurts Most

(I have been asked to write a couple of devotionals for our church; this is one of the devos I wrote on the subject of "Trust." Enjoy!)

“Lazarus was sick…so the sisters sent word to Jesus…On His arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been (dead) for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.” (Jn. 11:1, 3, 17, & 20)

They were Jesus’s close friends; Martha, Mary, Lazarus; they had all spent a lot of time together. Jesus loved going to their house, a place He could relax and enjoy their company as He rested from the grind of ministry. These were His friends, a family He loved; and yet, when they needed Him the most…He never came.

Mary was distraught. She had trusted Jesus; when she sent for Him, she thought surely He would come quickly and heal her brother, just as He healed everyone else; but instead, Jesus took His time while Lazarus’s illness took his life. “Didn’t He understand? Was my message not urgent enough? I trusted Him! I loved Him! How could He have let my brother DIE?!” Jesus did finally arrive, and Mary refused to see Him…

What do you do when the nightmare comes true? The eviction notice arrives; she was having an affair; the cancer spread; your daughter was in that wreck; your son calls you from prison? How can you trust a God, Who claims to love you, One, you’ve served faithfully, prayed to diligently, and believed in fervently, and then dares to let your life crumble around you?

We all experience times when life hits us with ruthless force, and the things we used to believe about God are shattered by our “real” reality. We find it difficult to pray, and it almost seems worthless to do the things we used to do, go to church, walk in love, tithe, after all what’s the point? What’s the point of doing all these things if they don’t protect you from life’s pain?

THIS is where trust begins. Trust is fashioned in the fires of heartache, perfected in the agony of affliction; it is birthed in the excruciating effort it takes to keep believing God when everything in you wants to quit. Trusting God surrenders to the process of pain in faith that God is still the same, and will be with us in the suffering.

Jesus wasn’t there to answer Mary’s prayer like she wanted Him to, but He was there to be with her in her pain. It is true for us today. The same God, Who brought you the man of your dreams, is the One, Who will also carry you through the divorce. The God, Who blessed you with the pregnancy, is the same One, Who will be with you as you miscarry. God may not prevent the pain or the loss, and He may not answer us the way we want Him to, but we can trust that, no matter what happens, He will be with us, loving us, even when life hurts most.

Before the Morning...

“God says to you THIS day: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”* The new day is coming! “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.”** God’s word will be fulfilled in YOUR LIFE!!!”

I sat there, listening to the CD of a past sermon from our church. There were hoots and hollers in the congregation from other saints, who were, likewise, receiving an encouraging word from the Lord; my voice was among them. You know how that can be – the preacher speaks on a topic, reads some passages – and then the Spirit downloads something to you personally, one that resonates with your spirit and speaks to your situation. This was no exception. The words were being read; a passage being spoken on the coming new day: the breakthrough is “just around the corner,” and the congregation was going crazy. I remember being apart of its jubilation: the Lord was speaking to me! Yes! I knew it was coming; my new day was just around the next bend! I could smell it, taste it; the breakthrough is mine! I receive it! Praise God! The sermon finished, I pressed eject on my CD player. I had heard the sermon before, and though at the time it was given, I was invigorated by the promise from God for the “new day” dawning…now, I winced. Shortly after the new day’s promise on that Sunday morning, my life had taken a turn into a long dark season of night…

It’s not that I was discouraged, or doubtful. I believed the word WAS real, that the promise of the new day WOULD come to pass…but now, I realized that, when the promise of the new day is made, darkness irrevocably follows. Why? Because, in God’s time table – the day begins in the evening, to separate from the previous day, and prepare for the new day:

“And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” (Gen. 1:5)

In the Jewish calendar, a new day begins at the sunSET of the previous day! In other words, the next day’s start is in darkness, before the light emerges. But we never think about it that way. For us, the new day is equivalent with the light dawning; new days mean “sunRISE” to us…and this is also true – the sunrise is the fulfillment of the promise; the consummation of a new day. Dawn is the manifestation or birth of the promise, but it only comes AFTER the preparation and development cultivated during the dark night.

On God’s time table, every word, every promise, every creation begins in darkness before it is brought to the light. For Creation, the world was in darkness and a void, then, it burst into light. For the child, he is first fashioned in the secret darkness of the womb before he is birthed into light. For the flower, its seed must be planted deep into the darkness of the earth, before it sprouts into the light of the sun. Likewise, whatever God has promised you, whatever prophetic vision He has placed in your heart for your life, it must be fashioned and molded in the darkness of your soul and circumstances before it can spring forth into the light of your life.

So why does the Lord give us these promises of “new days” dawning, when really, we will be seeing darkness first? Because, to God, there is no power in the darkness!

“(Jesus) having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col. 2:15).

"Death has been swallowed up in victory." (1 Cor. 15:54)

The darkness is only a miniscule detail that is necessary in order to produce the beauty and wonder of the light. For us, it is the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us going; that helps us “hang on” to overcome and receive the reward at the end of the course. It is the assurance that God’s Word is true, and even though the darkness tarries, we can wait for the fulfillment of that Word, knowing that the light WILL dawn at the end of the long night.

“For the (promise) awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” (Hab. 2:3)

Do not be disillusioned if you feel that your promise from God seems to have been a mistake. If your circumstances say “night” – rest assured, you are in the position of birthing a new day. The day is coming; it always dawns after the death of the previous day. Darkness IS the beginning of the day, and at the fullness of time, the dawn will be born in light.

You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light.” (2 Sam. 22:29)




*(Isa. 43:19)
**(Isa. 60:1)

Pressure's On

Tears were streaming down my cheeks; my eyes red, and face flushed, I clinched my jaw, grinding my teeth as my last ditch effort to keep my mouth shut. I was so tired, so agitated, wondering why in the world I was doing this thing that I so disliked. I wanted to say it; everything in me, the frustration, the heartache, the pit in my stomach, screamed at me to release one phrase, one word to express my truest feelings of this particular moment, of this particular “duty”…my mouth cracked open, and deeply inhaled, I managed to say, “I ha…”but instead of the word, a wail replaced it as it crossed my lips; sobbing ensued, but without the curse to accompany it…I won again, narrowly escaping the temptation to libel the very thing God had led me to do…

Have you ever felt called to do something, something you were excited about on the one hand, but nervous about on the next, and once you started it, you quickly wondered why in the world you were doing it? After all, you really DON’T like it, the ins and outs of all the duties, deadlines, assignments, whatever, it all builds up to a towering mountain of disdain, and everything in you wants to quit, wants to give in, maybe I was wrong, see ya! End of story; missed God, that was a mistake…

And sometimes you’d be right. There are times, when we feel led by God to do something, whether it’s go back to school, start a new job, or even enter into a dating relationship, and we’re in it a little while and all of a sudden, we realize we do NOT like what we’re doing, and that our “call” was a wide miss. In times like this, you shake the dust off your feet and move on.

But there are other times when, you know God has led you into it. You weighed and measured the costs and benefits of this decision, this job, this degree/certification, this relationship: you knew what you were getting into, kind of, and you knew that God was calling you to it. And, if God calls you, it’s better to walk in the hardship of obedience with a little suffering, than the ease of disobedience with a lot of it.

So – you say “yes” to this new position, new contract, new calling, and you get into it, and suddenly, the pressure’s on! The costs are way outweighing the benefits now, you become engulfed in deadlines, conflict management dilemmas, endless phone calls, administrative mayhem, dealing with petty offenses, familial responsibilities, on and on, the negatives of your new calling/position pile up up up until you can no longer see beyond them. The feelings of hate, frustration, and anxiety hit you like a slap of a tidal wave. You fight the urge to quit, to give in, to scream with all your might: “I HATE THIS!!!!”

But there’s the problem. The enemy wants you to curse your position, wants you to release your anger on the situation; he wants you to badmouth, complain, criticize, do everything he says about you to the very thing the God of glory asked you to do…

“The power of life and death are in the tongue…” (Prov. 19:21)

The power of life and death are in our tongues! If we curse it, it will be cursed. By articulating those feelings, we bring us that much closer to aborting our path of obedience, that much closer to preventing God’s purposes from coming to pass in our lives. And this is what the enemy wants. He wants us out of the will of God, wants us to quit, to choose mediocrity, to forfeit our place on the narrow road…and he typically begins applying his hardest pressure just before the birth of a breakthrough.

“The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” (Rev. 12:4)

Just as the enemy was waiting for the woman to give birth, knowing that a new life was forming, so the enemy waits on us, seeing when our time for delivery is at hand…and he prowls, roaring and seething, intimidating us, wearing us down, throwing out everything he can muster in order to get us to abort the process and forego our breakthrough.

He can’t compete with God’s promises from God’s end, but he can get us off track on ours. This was the battle I faced with this new thing in my life. It was apparent God had called me into it; I was supposed to proceed, even if there were things about it I didn’t like. But suddenly, a few weeks into, I became entrenched in all the negativities, related to this responsibility, and everything in me struggled to persevere, to keep going, to NOT say what I wanted to say, to refrain from articulating what I was feeling…and then it dawned on me…something was just ahead.

Why else would the enemy work so hard on getting me all uptight and frustrated? Why else, would he be so relentless in dashing my head with thoughts and emotions of how much I despised the opportunity afforded to me? Why else was it so hard to see the good in it, the very reasons I was called to do it? It must mean…I’m almost to the other side! Something in this situation is about to bring forth a new life, a life, which God wants me to have and enjoy…and the enemy wishes to steal. I have to stick with it! I have to bless it! I have to persevere! If I submit to God’s will to do this, and I resist the devil’s temptations to use my lips as his mouthpiece of death, then the devil WILL flee (ref. Jms. 4:7) and the good thing, which the Lord promised me, will shortly come to pass.

I’m not there yet; I’m still in the resisting stage; but I know that good things are coming, and until then, I will rejoice in the Lord always.

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” (Hab. 3:17-18, emphasis mine)