Trusting In Jesus During Hard Times

I think we can all agree that life can be very difficult most of the time. It seems there is always some catch, always some major issue at any given time in our lives. I know this to be true in my personal life. From family sickness to self-doubt, financial struggle, etc. You know, the usual issues we all seem to have at some point or another in our walk. Through it all I have learned that there is nothing more important than to set it all aside and Focus our Trust on the author of our lives, Jesus. Matthew 10:29-30 states “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” As we can clearly read in this passage, God pays close attention to every atom and molecule in our world. Nothing is hidden or happens without Him knowing that it will happen. Especially His children, that is you and I. I hear it so many times asked why does God allow evil. Evil has to be allowed for humans to have free will. I personally think free will is one of the scariest and most dangerous concepts that humans have access to.

Free will allows us to either follow God’s will or to become our own prideful gods in this world. Remember that God would have had no evil in this universe but sadly from Adam and Eve to you and I, we chose our own evil flawed will over the perfect pure will of Jesus. If you still do not grasp this idea let’s take a look at the 10 commandments found in Exodus 20:1-17

You can read the verses in depth but here are the summarized Laws. Remember that these laws are God’s perfect standard, because God is perfect.

1. I am the Lord thy God! Thou shalt have no other Gods but me! 
2. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain!
3. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath Day holy!
4. Thou shalt honor father and mother!
5. Thou shalt not kill!
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery!
7. Thou shalt not steal!
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor!
9. Do not let thyself lust after thy neighbor’s wife!
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor his farm, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his!

As you can read, many of these most humans would have broken. Now you might say “well I have never murdered someone” Jesus says in Matthew 5:21-22 “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgement.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You Fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. As we can see, God’s perfect standards are unattainable by humans, because He is perfect and His ways are perfect.

You see God has to be 100% perfect, if he was not perfect we could say that God made a mistake making Him as we are, imperfect and thereby not worthy of the title of God with the big G. Now that I have shed some light on why God allows evil, because we chose it, let’s focus on the main goal of this article. How we as believers in Jesus must work through these hard imperfect times.

I want to look at the story of Job and how God allowed Satan to destroy Job’s entire life. Now if you know the story of Job it’s a rough one and one of my favorite stories in the Bible, Why? Because it shows that God is always working in the background in ways we will NEVER understand. The story goes that one day Satan was roaming the earth taking in all that he had, he was talking with God about this. (Funny how it’s all actually God’s) So God says to Satan in Job 1:8 “And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none likes him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”

Satan’s reply is basically that Job only follows God because of all that God has given Job. Satan bets God that if God lets Satan take away everything Job has that he will turn away and deny God. The only rule, Satan can not kill Job. So Job’s life explodes, everything and everyone dies or is destroyed, his own wife tells him to deny God but he doesn’t. His 3 “friends” bash him and drag his identity through the dirt saying that surely he must have sinned against God. Then one of my favorite passages in the bible starts in Job 38 titled “The Lord Answers Job” God basically asks Jobs if he was there when the universe was created and if he knows the secrets of the planet, like when the deer gives birth and such. However at the very end God justifies Job and rebukes Job’s friends and restores to our Brother Job 2 times as much as he had before documented in Job 42:10-17.