Have any of you ever been in the midst of challenging times in your life, where the circumstances and feelings you were enduring left you pondering if you would or could make it through?
Job 14:1-2 (NIV) explains, “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.”
That’s what life entails for all of us at one point or another: hardships of every kind like the death of loved ones, temptations, etc. I believe we all can write our very own New York Times best-seller telling some of life’s challenging seasons we’ve all endured and barely made it through with our sanity still intact and breathing to tell the story. Yet, we had to believe God would see us through.
I’ve always struggled with truly seeing God. I questioned how can someone so great and almighty help me in my times of need if I can’t see Him, know what He looks like, or what physical features I need to be on the lookout for.
I always thought God was going to show himself to me as He did to Moses in the Burning Bush, or part of the sky like He did the Red Sea to explain to me whatever He’s trying to say. I wanted it to be so easy and clear that I could not mistake it for anything else. Needless to say, I made a mistake. I put God in a box. I limited God to the ways I thought He could speak to me, by demanding how He should, especially in my greatest times of need, when no one’s words of encouragement could lift my lowly spirit, and when I felt at my lowest, and when I felt no one understood what I was going through. I thought God wasn’t there; I thought God didn’t love me and may have forgotten about me, or that I was too sinful to save. However, Psalm 86:5 reminds us otherwise. But during those challenging times, I was left wondering where God was. The one that everyone can attest to is the simple fact of Him never leaving us, nor forsaking us as Deuteronomy 31:8 and Joshua 1:5 continually reiterates. The real issue was I, and many of us, may not have been seeing the full picture in the midst of our trials and tribulations, but God was still in the midst of it all.
You may ask how God can and was God in the midst of all the suffering we all may have or are going through now. Well, I say God must have been if we’re both reading this currently. Early on in my Christian journey, I thought when things were good, that meant God was with me and when things were bad, God wasn’t. And you may think that or the devil may toy with you to make you believe in this lie, but that’s just it, a lie. We may think because of our unwanted circumstances, seasons we’re in, or sufferings we’re going through that God has left us. But even Job, a blameless man suffered, so why not us too? Maybe, just maybe these things are making us see Him and the things God is using even more clearly in our own individual lives and amidst our trials. If you are finding it hard to believe let me explain:
Two years ago, this month I tried to commit suicide. I was mentally unwell and tired of life’s hardships and situations I had gotten myself in, and I was reeling from the ramifications of them all while being in my senior year of college during a pandemic.
I was mad at God and drowning in my own self-pity. To put it frankly, I was at my wit’s end and I just wanted it all to end. To finally have peace. And this is what I thought was the perfect solution. But I didn’t see or want to believe God was keeping me; I didn’t realize God was and had. I had thought that no matter the amount and types of things I did, there was no point, God couldn’t be in the midst of this. But like before I was wrong, I just didn’t see God in the ways I thought He should be helping me out. I put God in a box once again. For months, people’s words and encouragement couldn’t soothe my broken spirit or heart. But in the moments leading up to my attempt, God used somebody that I didn’t realize until months later, who God had used to help and redeem me in the beginning once before. Once again, God was in the midst of it. God used this person to talk me off the ledge, and now I’m currently reminding myself and all of you how God is continually in the midst of it all if we take a step back and not limit him.
Lastly, I want to say I feel for all of you, the hard times we may have or are going through, don’t feel all too well. I understand this. But my hope is for all of us to be able to look back at our lives and analyze even the current state of them now, just how God has kept us in the midst of it all. God can use anything or anyone. God used my friend unbeknownst in my situation, and we even see in the Bible God used a donkey in Numbers 22. All I can say is never put God in a box, be mindful of the ways He might be speaking to you, and realize Jesus always has you.
