Will there ever be a stable routine again?
This question echoes in my mind while I lay exhausted on the couch after the heavy burst of grief. My heart is weary of so much pain, sadness, and disappointment. After the unexpected loss of my husband, my life unraveled.
This one enormous loss unlocked a series of many other losses and plunged me into a season of grief, suffering, and multiple stressful transitions. Pain became my constant companion.
Trusting God is a Choice
How can I choose to trust God when it hurts so much? How can I trust Him when I don’t understand, and I struggle to grasp His ways and mysterious providence?
There are moments when it seems nearly impossible to reconcile the painful feelings and the looming uncertainty with the love of God and His good plans and intentions.
Maybe you are in the same struggle, friend. When it hurts, it is especially challenging to continue trusting God and the plans He has for us.
But I want to trust Him. Whenever I did this in the past, I experienced deeper peace and lightness. The choice to trust God pushes back the heavy curtain of discouragement on our hearts and lets the sun of His love, joy, and hope shine again.
So I push aside my painful feelings and begin to remember why I can still choose to trust God when it hurts.
The choice to trust God pushes back the heavy curtain of discouragement on our hearts and lets the sun of His love, joy, and hope shine again.
Six Biblical Reasons to Trust God When It Hurts
#1 – There is a Purpose in Our Pain and Suffering.
Our present pain serves a purpose. It is a preparation for what is coming, for greater challenges will surely come. We need to learn to trust God and lean on Him and His strength in our present seasons of pain to face the greater challenges in the future.
God’s answer to Jeremiah’s complaint expresses this idea beautifully: “If you have raced with runners and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan (Jer 12:5 HCSB)?”
Let’s choose to trust God and say with the psalmist, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever (Ps 73:26 HCSB).”
We need to learn to trust God and lean on Him and His strength in our present seasons of pain to face the greater challenges in the future.#2 – His Thoughts are Higher, and His Plans are Always Good.
Friend, when we struggle to trust God in the middle of our pain, we can choose to hold on to firmly to the truth that God is good at being God and that He knows best and has everything under control.
Let’s choose to put our trust in these words: “For I know the plans I have for you,”—this is the Lord’s declaration—”plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope (Jer 29:11 HCSB).”
God’s thoughts are always higher, and His plans are always good. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts (Is 55:9 HCSB).”
#3 – God Feels Our Pain and Longs to Comfort Us.
The Bible calls Jesus the Suffering Servant. In His flesh, He experienced deep suffering and anguish. He knows how it feels: the crushing pain of betrayal, the agony of surrendering His will to the Father, the sadness and grief of losing a loved one, the deep hurt and loneliness of abandonment.
That’s why He is able to empathize with our suffering and weaknesses. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15 HCSB).”
“For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He did not hide His face from him but listened when he cried to Him for help (Ps 22:24 HCSB).”
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 HCSB#4 – God Wants to Give Us an Unshakable Hope.
It often happens that our pain strips us and exposes the focus of our true beliefs and hope. God, through Jesus, wants to give us an unshakeable hope that can endure any kind of pain and suffering.
This is not hoping for a better outcome or solution to a problem; it is the eternal hope in His living word and promises. So we can declare, “I wait for Yahweh; I wait and put my hope in His Word (Ps 130:5 HCSB).”
When we choose to trust God, we will not be ashamed about anything. “My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all boldness, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death (Phil 1:20 HCSB).”
#5 – All Our Seasons are in God’s Hand.
We can trust God by leaning on the truth that He directs and uses the course of our lives to restore, heal, and transform us. We can rest knowing that “the course of our lives is in His power (Ps 31:15 HCSB).”
The beautiful thing about seasons is that they change. We will not live in an eternal winter. Spring is coming, and with it, new hope and new joys. The truth that there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance (Eccl 3:4 HCSB)” makes it easier for us to trust God when it hurts.
We will not live in an eternal winter. Spring is coming, and with it, new hope and new joys.#6 – Pain Moves us from Sympathy to Empathy.
The pain, loss, and grief we experience make our hearts more sensitive. God works in us to move from sympathy to empathy so that we can bring comfort to other souls in pain. He wants to make us comforters, even though we are hurting and brings a new sense of meaning and purpose to our suffering and pain.
“He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God (1 Cor 1:4 HCSB).”
Choose to Trust God & Find Comfort for Every Pain
Will there ever be a stable routine again?
I don’t know, friend. But when we choose to trust God again with our pain, we step out with Him in the waves of the ocean of uncertainty and unpredictability.
We let go; We surrender. With God on our side, we can walk on the raging sea. We can sleep in the boat during the storm. He is always with us, helping us, strengthening and supporting us.
Yes, there will be more pain in our lives. But for every pain there is comfort, and we are always welcome to rest my head and cry out our tears in the Everlasting Arms. Until the day comes when “He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away (Rev 21:4 HCSB).”
-Hadassah Treu
Hadassah Treu is a bilingual published poet, devotional writer, and blogger, the Encouraging Blogger Award Winner for 2020, and a Blogger Voices Network contributor. On her blog, she encourages the readers in the journey of faith and a deeper walk with God. She loves diving in the Word of God and enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her family and friends. Connect with Hadassah on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
