Painful situations in life sometimes make us lose our grip. We don’t understand what’s going on, we feel overwhelmed and defeated, and we feel like our life is never going to get better.
But it’s wrong. God controls all of our storms and He has already planned the way out. For now, He is using this difficult time to forge us.
While waiting for the end, stand firm. These practical steps to stand firm in hardship will help you do that.
4 Ways to stand firm in hardship
Below are 4 practical ways to stand firm in God amidst hardship and ugly situations in life.
1. Get Closer And More Closer To GOD
2 Chronicles 20: 1-4
Subsequently, the Moabites and Ammonites, reinforced by Méounites, went to war against Jehoshaphat. They came to tell the king: “A large army is marching against you,” they said to him. She came from across the Dead Sea, out of the land of Edom, and is now in Hassasson-Tamar, that is, En-Gedi. “. Feared, Jehoshaphat decided to consult the Lord and imposed a fast on the whole kingdom of Judah. The Judeans came from all the cities of the land and gathered to ask for help from the Lord.
When the bad news comes, pain strikes, we are afraid. We are unsettled, discouraged, saddened. This is normal, we are human, we react emotionally. Now, like King Jehoshaphat, we must ACT on what we know to be right. He was afraid when he was told that the neighboring peoples were about to come and attack him, but he did not give in to his fear. He didn’t start to ask himself a thousand questions, to get angry with God, or to get depressed.
On the contrary, he sought the face of the Lord, he asked all the people to join him in fasting and prayer in order to implore heaven’s help. If you read the rest of the chapter, God fought the enemies of Jehoshaphat and he emerged victorious in this war. No more people dared to rise up against him.
This is how God wants us to behave when the storm hits. Our emotions react to bad news, but we must react to bad news. That is, not to let ourselves be dominated by our natural reactions and decide to do what the Bible teaches us. We have to run in the presence of God. We don’t need to look for solutions, to spend sleepless nights worrying. Let’s run and take refuge in the arms of the Lord. He will give us a war strategy that will lead us to victory!
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2. Stay Attached To Church
When it all collapses, two things remain God and our values. These are the two pillars that we must hold on to until the storm passes. Our sure value in times of crisis is our loyalty, that is to say, our attachment, our commitment to a cause or a person. When the wind starts to blow, we must stay engaged at all costs!
Stay attached to your church.
Galatians 6: 9
Let’s do good without getting discouraged. Yes, if we go all the way, we will reap when the time is right.
Let’s not start to stop going just because we are going through difficult situations. We need to learn to become stable, that is, to stop questioning our commitments as soon as a problem arises. God cannot build anything in the life of an unstable person. So roll up your sleeves, serve God in His house, faithfully continue to go, and listen to His word every Sunday. Not only will what you hear will give you strength, but also the brothers and sisters will support you and God will eventually reward your faithfulness.
Stay with the Word of God.
John 9: 31 (King James Version)
We know that God does not answer sinners, but that if someone honors Him and does His will, He answers them.
Practice it every day. You don’t need to look for solutions to your problem, instead seek to practice God’s Word better. Do not go back, do not go back to your sins of the past, to your friends of the past etc. Resist the temptation to let go of your good resolutions. Keep doing well, keep obeying the principles of the Bible. Everything she says is true and you will see her every promise come true in your life. Giving priority to the Word when everything is bad is to honor God, it is to tell Him that He matters more to us than our comfort and our desires. God is faithful and He will always honor those who honor Him.
And finally, stay with the promise that God made to you.
Psalm 119: 49-50
Remember what you said to Your servant, this word gives me hope. Your promise makes me live, this is what consoles me in my misfortune.
In difficult times, the Lord always gives us a promise to lean on, on which to base all our hopes. So when the going gets tough, always remember this word, keep it in your heart. And again, God is faithful and whatever He says He will do. The storm will pass and the hour of your blessing will come. Do not doubt it.
3. Continue To Obey Instructions
Luke 6: 47-49
The one who comes to Me, who listens to My words and obeys Me, I will show you who he looks like: he looks like someone who is building a house. He dug the earth, he dug deep, and he laid the foundation on stone. At the time of the flood, the waters of the river rush over this house, but they cannot move it. Indeed, the house is well built.
But whoever listens to My words and does not do what I say, this is what he looks like: he looks like someone who built a house on the ground, without making a foundation. When the waters of the river flow over it, the house falls immediately, it is completely destroyed! “
The most frustrating thing in a dark moment is that sometimes God hardly speaks to us. We then have the impression that He has abandoned or forgotten us. It’s not, He does it on purpose. When God is silent it means that we are doing the right thing, then we are moving in the right direction and therefore He does not need to tell us anything else; or He already told us something a while ago and we still haven’t obeyed.
He won’t say anything more until we obey this instruction.
Either way, always do and continue to do what God tells us ESPECIALLY in times of trial. It is our obedience that leads us to the exit, not our tears, our sadness, our prayers, and our laments. In suffering, we are tempted to stop doing well. As soon as a difficult situation arises we stop going to church, we no longer want to pray, we start to have bad attitudes, etc. We are failing and sinking deeper into our pain. Let’s get out of there, obey, and keep doing whatever God expects of us. This will speed up the exit process.
4. Set The Situation Aside And Continue To Live
Luke 12:25
It is not by worrying that you can add a single day to your life!
Often trials paralyze us. We wait for them to end to start living again. But if we think like this, we’re never going to live! We cry to God for a promotion and a salary increase, the day we are promoted, we are happy for a few weeks and then we realize the demands and the pressure that goes with this new position!
When a test ends, we breathe for a while, and then another arrives. Life is full of challenges and challenges so let’s learn to appreciate it in the midst of our trials.
Stop constantly thinking about this problem, it’s not going to solve it. If you had the solution you would have solved it already. But God already has the solution.
Until He gives it to you, continue to enjoy your life! When God allows a test in one compartment of your life, He always gives you success in one or more others so that you do not get completely discouraged.
Do not waste time. Have fun, don’t fuss at home. Move forward with your other projects, it will give you hope. There is more to life than one situation.
Final Words:
Let’s keep calm. The Lord is going to get us out of there. By the time the difficulties begin, He has already scheduled an end date. We focus on the storm that hits us, God has His eyes fixed on our attitude during the storm. He doesn’t just want us to come out of this trial, He wants us to be grown and strengthened by the trial.
