Facing Life's Difficulties

"Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." (Psalm 55:22)

" A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all…" (Psalm 34:19)

We all face difficulties in this life; sometimes we encounter real tragedies and problems that seem too big for us to handle ourselves.
The Bible does not teach us to pretend our problems do not exist, nor does it promise a “quick fix” for everything. What it does teach is that we can bring our problems to the Lord and ask for His help. God promises to intervene on behalf of those who faithfully serve him, to bring them out of their troubles.

The Bible also does NOT teach that bad events or disasters are necessarily sent by God or caused by God. The Bible is clear that some things happen that grieve God’s heart as much as ours, such as personal sin and human cruelty. Sometimes the bad things that happen are the result of sinful choices that other people make. Sometimes we have subjected ourselves to troubles because of sinful choices we ourselves made. We cannot blame God for these things; He did not want them to occur. Sometimes people ask why God did not do more to prevent the problems. Yet this would mean that God would have to make everyone into robots, with no freedom, choice, or ability to love or learn anything on our own. And even if God did not prevent the problem, he always offers a solution: we can turn to him in prayer, casting our cares on him.

When we pray, we ask for at least two things: first, for God to give us the peace and wisdom we need at the moment to handle any crisis gracefully; and second, for God to intervene on our behalf, orchestrating events or touching the hearts of other people in the situation so that the problem can be resolved in the best possible way.

As we become more spiritually mature, we should also begin to view trials and struggles as opportunities for personal spiritual growth and self-improvement. This is not to say that God necessarily caused the problem in order to teach you a lesson; rather, we believe that in every trial, there are useful lessons to learn, even when the troubles were brought on by the sinful choices of others, or our own bad decisions. We should learn, therefore, to ask God to help us glean everything we can from our current struggle, even as we ask him to sustain us through it, and to bring it to an end as soon as possible.
What can we learn from life’s problems? Sometimes our faith grows the most when we witness first-hand how the Lord can work in our lives to resolve a crisis. Armed with such increased faith, we can face future difficulties with more wisdom and grace, and can even help others through their times of darkness. Other times, we have some character flaw or bad habit that we should leave behind. Trials are one of the ways we identify our own shortcomings and areas where we need to improve or grow. We also gain valuable experience and knowledge, and these equip us for important tasks or roles the Lord has in store for us. It is difficult, of course, to see these things (or to value them) when we are suffering; that is why we need to pray that the Lord would bring us out of the problem even better off – more mature – than we ever were before. The Lord honors such prayers.

So then, cast your cares on the Lord; He cares for you. Pray that he will give you the strength and peace to endure your hardships. Pray that he will bring you successfully out of the hardship, so that you can serve Him more freely and be less encumbered by worries. Finally, pray that when you do emerge from the current problem, you will have learned everything possible from the experience.