Little Red Caboose
February 9, 2015Why Israel Matters
February 11, 2025
Trusting God in Our Troubles, Part 1
When we first come to God as new believers in Jesus, we begin to discover the magnitude of God’s Love: how He gave His own Son to rescue us, make us right in His eyes and bring us close – right into His own family! We begin to experience the peace of His daily care and the joy of getting to know Him and being part of His people and His plans.
But as we go on in our walk as believers, we find a lot of difficulties, trials and troubles come into our lives. We have not yet learned the Truth of Jesus’s words: in the world you will have tribulation. (John 16:33). We expect God to fix everything for us, make the path smooth. We pray believing that God can and will help us and bring His great power to bear on our problem.
We wait. We pray. We call the prayer chain.
BUT many times God does not SEEM to be doing anything.
Then we start to ask questions: WHY IS IT SO HARD? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? WHY DOESN’T GOD CHANGE THIS PERSON OR CIRCUMSTANCE? DOESN’T HE CARE ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING?
Here are some answers to those questions:
Why is it so hard? Because those who love God and seek Him are the ones that satan attacks most!
Why is this happening to me? Because God has a plan to use what our enemy is doing for our good!
Why doesn’t God change this person or circumstance? Because God is working IN this situation to change US!! GOD ALLOWS DIFFICULTIES IN THE LIVES OF ALL HIS CHILDREN (they look different, but all of us walk through difficulty of some kind.) WHY? Because they are God’s WAY into all that He wants for us, all that He has promised. They are the only way into the glory of becoming like our Lord Jesus Christ in character and nature. In a hard situation I need to remind myself that God is not as interested in changing my difficult circumstance as He is in changing me; He doesn’t want to fix my problem as much as He wants to fix me!
Remembering HIS goal (not ours) will help us begin to look at our troubles from a different perspective.
Instead of doubts and ‘whys,’ we can ask different questions:
What is God doing in this?
What does He want me to learn?
What good can I find even now in the middle of this hard place?
How can I cooperate with God in His purpose?
If we will choose to go THROUGH trials with faith and patience, looking up to Him, we will experience more of what God intends for us in His sovereign love. We will become overcomers – overcoming our difficulties by faith that releases His peace in our hearts!
Trust allows God to bring us into the fullness of His plans for us! How greatly He desires to bless us; how patiently He waits for our cooperation! The Lord will wait, that he may be gracious to you….blessed are all those who wait for [trust in] Him. (Isaiah 30:18)
YES, FATHER, I WANT TO BE CHANGED INSIDE BY THESE TROUBLES.I WANT YOU TO HAVE YOUR WAY IN ME. I TRUST THAT YOU ARE ALWAYS ON MY SIDE, CARING FOR ME AND TRAINING ME TO BE THE PERSON YOU DESIRE ME TO BE, LIVING FULLY IN YOUR LOVE AND PURPOSE.
Trusting God in Our Troubles, Part 2
1 Peter 4:12 says we are not to be surprised at trials. They are not strange occurrences, but a powerful tool God is using for our good! One of God’s primary goals in allowing the trials and difficulties we face is to get the mixture out of us.
I think we are all aware that we have mixed responses to God, to others, to life. There is a part of us that wants God’s way, but another part of us wants our own way! God uses hard times to break the Self-life – the independent soul that strives to be in control and have its way. The Self (by which I mean the parts of our soul not yet surrendered and yielded to God) is always resisting Jesus’ reign as King over us. This resistance keeps us from the good plans He has for us.
Our souls have had their way for a long time – we have used strength of mind or will power to get what we want. We have trusted our own wisdom and ingenuity, we have worked hard to try to keep our lives under our control –by our own efforts!
But God’s goal is always – every day – to bring us into trusting dependence on Him instead of ourselves. Paul understood that great difficulty in his life was part of God’s plan, part of His training in trust:
…that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves
instead of on God Who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:9 AMP)
What do we need to do to begin to yield to God in hard circumstances? Here are some ways to practice, to learn to say NO to the natural ways and inclinations of our souls:
- Stop relying on our own reasoning (if I do this, maybe I can get that person to change)
- Stop allowing our emotions to rule us (self-pity, anger, etc).
- Stop expecting to deal with our problem by sheer willpower (if I plan enough and work enough, I can be in control of this situation).
- Recognize that our desires (I want out now!) may not be what God intends for me – yet.
- Choose a different way: “YOUR WILL, Father!” I’m willing to LET You have Your way in my life! This means in the details!
This is a battle we must fight with our souls….daily. I can keep on relying on ME or I can choose to trust GOD – the Almighty One Who has power over all things in heaven and earth! I can choose to believe that He is working something good IN me for my eternal joy and His pleasure!
God wants us to come to Him in the middle of our painful situations…and let Him be GOD. The old ways of relying on my SELF have to die. God is relentless – He does not want us trusting Him SOME of the time and taking charge the rest of the time! No. He wants us to trust Him all the time in every circumstance, large or small, easy or hard.
God wants to use our problems to TRAIN us
- To find Him
- To choose to bow our knee to Him as our loving Father
- To trust Him even when we don’t understand
There is a wonderful account in Daniel 3 of three loyal young men who, when threatened with death by fire, chose to keep on TRUSTING God:
“Our God is able to save us” – they knew God’s power was far greater
than the king and all his soldiers “and He will save us” – they knew God’s character of love and
compassion, they knew He could see what they were facing and trusted He would intervene…
BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN’T we will not bow…–they were declaring that God’s way is what they wanted most –more than a miracle rescue!
This is the kind of trust God wants us to learn and to choose in the worst of times. He wants us to cling to Him by faith, believing that it is always safe to trust Him totally! The Father longs for His children to be people whose trust in Him will not waiver when He does not do what we want or when He seems to be doing nothing!
LOOK UP! BE FULLY CONFIDENT THAT HE IS AT WORK IN YOUR LIFE TODAY IN WISDOM, LOVE AND POWER!
Trusting God in Our Troubles, Part 3
God uses difficulties and hard times to teach us to trust Him instead of ourselves. Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead. 2 Corinthians 1:9AMP
Sometimes our trials also serve another purpose: they can be tests to see what is in our hearts: trust or doubt. These tests show whether we are ready for the responsibilities and blessings God wants to give to His mature children!
A doctor has to pass a test before he can practice medicine – the test shows whether or not he has learned what he needs to know to be a doctor. He must take this test to get to his goal. This is true for us: God is giving us tests we have to pass before He can entrust us with the destiny He wants us to live out for His Kingdom and glory!
Can we shift our perspective on difficulties to see them as opportunities? Our loving God WANTS us to pass every character test so we become people who are able to work with Him in what He is doing on earth. He wants mature, tested partners – not babies – to carry out His assignments.
Remember Job who suffered through severe emotional, physical and financial tests. Tremendous loss! What was his response? He actually said to God though You kill me, I will still trust You. (Job 13;15) That kind of choice is the result of deciding to trust God over and over again in every little detail. Job must have already passed many small tests before this huge one. He was able to cling to God in the middle of so much suffering. HOW?
Here are some things we can learn from Job’s story about how to respond to our troubles:
- Know that testing does not necessarily mean we have done something wrong. Sometimes we are reaping the wrongs we have done, but sometimes we are being sifted by Satan because we love and want to serve God. Job was fully devoted to God (Job 1:8), and yet God allowed this testing. Jesus was tested – and by His response in suffering, He showed that He loved the Father’s will more than His own. We are tested because we DO love Him and want to please Him – for that very reason, we come under attack. What a privilege to be among those who rejoice in troubles because we count Him worthy of our trust in all circumstances.
- Do not blame or accuse God. The Bible says that “Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10). Even in great suffering, Job guarded the words that came from his mouth! This is a very important lesson for us – we must GUARD our lips. We need to be careful in the way we talk about what is happening and the attitude we have toward God in our pain – pour out our grief to Him – but don’t accuse Him! "In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong" (Job 1:22). We may think we are complaining about our boss, spouse, or pastor, but God hears our complaints as against Him (see Ex 16:2, 7,8).
- Understand how ignorant we are! God’s ways are so different from ours (Isaiah 55:9) – we have no real concept of the immense gap between how we see and understand things and how God thinks and moves. When we are confused about what is happening in our lives, we can stop to remember that we don’t know all that God is doing. But we do know that He is always at work and His plan is to bring us good! We can acknowledge how little we understand and decide to simply trust Him! Everything we know about God is just a whisper of Who He really is – we barely know His greatness, majesty, beauty, and love!
- Forgive and pray for those who hurt you or made you miserable in your hard place! This is what Jesus commanded us: "Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Luke 6:27). Start doing this today! When you feel hurt or angry, STOP and say, “I choose to forgive _______ – and I ask the Holy Spirit to make it real in my heart! I ask You, Father, to bless them.” Forgiveness is a pathway to blessing in your life! It sets you free from bitterness. It restores you to the right relationship with God! It is vitally important.
So testing is from God, to train us in trusting and qualify us for the work He has called us to do. If you are in a test right now – cry out to God – tell Him you want His full purpose to be accomplished IN you through it! Don’t let your trials go to waste. God will use them to benefit you – you will grow and then you will be useable for Kingdom work!
His goal and desire is mature sons and daughters wholly committed to Him, daily becoming more like His beloved Son! YOU ARE INVITED TO GROW INTO THE LIKENESS OF GOD’S GLORIOUS SON– THROUGH YOUR RIGHT RESPONSE TO TROUBLES.
