Understanding hard times

November 2, 2023

WHEN HARD TIMES come, it can be helpful to determine their origins. Understanding the source of the difficulties we face may help as we look to God for the strength to endure and the openness to learning and growing through the experience.

I’ve identified five different kinds of hardship. Those that result:

From our choices. We sin. We do silly things. We make mistakes. We act immaturely or unwisely. We make wrong but well-intended decisions.

From others’ choices. People hurt us, both intentionally and unintentionally—from the abuser to the businessman simply making a hard call that means you lose your job.

From random troubles. We all live in the fragility of a fallen world. Bodies break down, buildings crumble, storms wreak havoc and careless drivers run through red lights.

From the enemy. I don’t believe the devil is behind every bad thing that happens, but there are occasions when he comes against us directly.

Recognizing where our current challenge falls in this list can help because we need to face the fact that God could instantly deliver from any and all of these situations, but often chooses not to. Why?

Because He wants to use these trying times to develop us. While we see “as in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12), He knows the beginning from the end. He knows how what we are going through is intended to shape us and take us to where we need to be. So, He uses it to:

Wake us up. Maybe we have been asleep, apathetic or otherwise absent in some way.

Train us up. Perhaps we need to develop some ability or aptitude.

Grow us up. Maturity comes with experience—and often with hard experience.

Raise us up. This tough time might be the only way we will find ourselves positioned in the places and with the people God wants to bring us to.

Now, the four sources of hard times I’ve listed so far may stretch our understanding of God’s love, but they all reveal His good heart toward us in some way. Why? Because He uses them and repurposes them.

But there’s another source that may seem even more taxing to our comprehension of His ways and plans: those hard times He chooses and purposes, rather than uses and repurposes.

Take Joseph. We all know how he went through terrible trials before he became Pharoah’s righthand man, and when his brothers came to him for wheat because of the famine, he forgave them. God had meant their mistreatment for good, he said (Genesis 50:20).

But there’s more. In Genesis 45:5-7, Joseph tells them “do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you . .   God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (emphasis added).

How can a loving God actually send us into hard times? Because He sees the good end of the story, not just the hard chapter we may be in. Remember, “for the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, scorning its shame . . .” (emphasis added).

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