It’s hard to have faith when life’s hard
It's when all the serious hurt-mouthing of God begins. Why me? What have I ever done to him? Where was he when I really needed him? After all I have done for him, what happened? How about a break? Isn't this enough now? Just stop!
Life is tough. Suffering is real. Things aren't working out like you dreamed they would—let alone like you deserve! It makes it so hard to keep on believing that God is being good to you. Where is he? Where is his love?
And on it goes.
But what are you going to do? Take the advice Job's wife gave to her husband, to curse God and die (Job 2:9)? That hardly seems sensible, and it hardly seems a step that will alleviate your suffering—especially if being right with God holds the key to eternity!
Eternity. Now there's a thought. A glory to come that is not even worth comparing to the sufferings of the moment (Rom 8:18). But can we even imagine that kind of glory? Perhaps the more we suffer, the greater the contrast, and the more our imagination is fired up—'cos what else is there? A whole new creation, new bodies, new reality, sin gone, death gone, pain gone, crying gone (Rev 21:1-4). When I feel the sufferings of this present age and hear the gospel promises, the disjunction couldn't be more enormous. It is enough to make me groan. It is enough to make me cry out, not “Why me?”, but “Remember me!”. And as I cry out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24), it is enough to make me remember the answer to that question. Jesus' victory was mine—it was ‘for me’. And his victory makes me strain ahead to the inheritance, he has promised to share. Not even worth comparing ...
When life is hard, nothing is easy—not even faith. But, then again, perhaps when life is hard, faith becomes easy—by default. For where else are you going to go? He has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). And when life seems to squeeze the vice-grip harder, it is as if he turns our painful groans into cries of expectation. And the vice once again becomes his loving embrace.
(To be continued …)
