“It feels like God has forgotten about me,” cried the woman mourning her third miscarriage.
“Why won’t God answer my prayer for a job?” begged the man who got laid off six months ago, with a wife and four kids at home.
Can you relate to any of these hurting people?
Maybe you aren’t suffering from a natural disaster, miscarriage, or job loss. Maybe for you, it’s racial discrimination, sickness, loneliness, fear, church hurt, fill-in-the-blank. No matter what it is, we are guaranteed to face hardship in this life.
This isn’t news. We all know that because of sin, life is going to be hard until Jesus returns to Earth. We know that trials will come sooner or later.
But then, when they do come, something changes. The idea of hardship becomes a reality, and everything gets much, much harder. Knowing hardships happen is a lot different when you are actually walking through them. From the outside, we know that God is in control and has a plan for us. But in the midst of hardship, we tend to lose sight of this truth. We forget that God is in control, and will ultimately deliver us from every trial, whether in this age or the age to come. Instead, we can begin believing that God has forgotten us.
One of my favorite verses in the Old Testament is in Exodus 2. The people of Israel were enslaved by Egypt, and they were crying out to God for deliverance. Egypt was working them to the bone and treating them like dirt. All hope seemed lost as they cried out to God to save them from their bondage.
Exodus 2:23-25 says, “During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.“
God sees you. He knows what you’re going through.
In the midst of the hardest trial, this verse brings a breath of hope.
Romans 8:27-37 says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
In all these things – natural disasters, miscarriages, job losses, racial discrimination, sickness, loneliness, fear, church hurt, fill-in-the-blanks – we are more than conquerors through Jesus.
Because of Jesus, we can be confident in the truth that nothing will separate us from His love. If you are in the midst of hardship, linger over the words of Romans 8. Read them every morning, believing that God is in control, and is interceding for you.
God sees you. God knows you. Cling to Him.
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Our Location: The Advent Centre, Crawford Place, London, W1H 5JE
Regular Meetings Divine Service: Every Saturday from 11:15 AM
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