From the Pulpit: God will – and does – help you through the hardships of life

Friends in the Community,

Greetings to each and every one of you from God our loving heavenly Father and our living Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope and pray that this article finds all of you well now that we are flying through the month of September (can you believe we are almost 75% of the way through 2026?). 

Have you ever had a time when you have struggled in your faith? Have you ever had a time when life did not go as you expected or desired it to go? Instead of facing only happy times, have you ever found yourself facing hardships and wondering where God or wondering why God is not answering your prayers fast enough?

We have all had difficult times in our lives. We have had those times when we have faced hardships in our lives. Some of us have had physical difficulties. Our bodies have failed us in some way or another. I remember last year when my large intestine decided to do a somersault inside my body. I could not figure out why the pain would not just subside. I also could not understand why this would happen on a Saturday when God knew I needed to preach a sermon on Sunday. Along with these, I wondered how this could happen when I had only been in the congregation a few months. I was still working on my first impression, and suddenly, I was laying flat on my back in a hospital bed and unable to do what I had been called to do. Perhaps, you did not have a physical setback. Maybe, for you, the moment of struggle was emotional. You could not figure out why you did not feel like yourself. You could not explain it. You just knew something was not right. As you prayed, you wondered why God did not take the struggle away. You prayed, and it seemed like things did not turn around. If you did not face a physical or emotional struggle, maybe, you have struggled spiritually. You cannot understand why the world operates the way it does. You cannot fathom why certain things happen in the ways that they do. You also wonder why God allows things to occur that do not make sense.

We are not the first people to face these struggles. When we read the Bible we see people who have faced the same struggles we do. We read about people who had broken bodies, minds and spirits. They have the same questions and wonderings that we do. They want to know why things happen, and they have questions about where God is during certain events in their lives.

As we read about these people, we also read about the ways that God helps people overcome their struggles and questions. For example, when Lazarus dies, his sisters both tell Jesus the death would not have happened if he would have come sooner. What does Jesus do? Jesus shows them that he has power over death. Another example of questioning comes during the storm the disciples face. When they are fighting the wind, they wonder how Jesus can sleep through the storm. What does Jesus do? He demonstrates his power over the rain and over the storms we all face in our lives.

These Bible stories were written for us. They were written for us to have hope in the midst of our struggles. They were given to us to show us that we are never alone. God has the power to overcome all those powers that work so hard to defeat us. As we have questions, we find that the answers come by reading the Scriptures and seeing how God has helped his people since the very beginning. This is good news for all of us!

Just a thought …