The Morning Will Come: Finding Hope in SufferingSample

Responding to Suffering

When I’m struggling, my thoughts are all over the place. I can seamlessly go from anger to despair to doubt, and before I know it, I’m in the pit. I keep spiraling downward until I stop and refocus, turning to God, remembering and rehearsing the truths I need to hold onto. Passages like this one in James 4 help me reorient my heart.

Verse 7 begins with “therefore,” connecting this call to what comes before it: a reminder of God’s favor towards the humble, to those who have chosen friendship with God rather than with the world. When I approach God humbly, He draws near, pulling me even closer to Himself and farther away from the prideful ways of the world.

The posture I bring is important. When I submit to God, I’m acknowledging that He is sovereign over my life. I need His Spirit who lives in me, cultivating the humility we’re called to have, and offering His grace to make it through suffering. Submitting in suffering reorients my mind to God and to my utter dependence on Him. It is trusting Him with the outcome, knowing He will give me what is best.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Before I can resist the devil, I need to be aware of his schemes. Throughout Scripture, we see that Satan wants us to believe that God isn’t for us, that God doesn’t care, and that God isn’t good. Satan wants us to be self-reliant, to assume we don’t need God or His wisdom, and to believe instead that we are better off without God. Satan, the accuser, wants us to feel accused, guilty, desperate, and hopeless. So when those thoughts start creeping in, I need to recognize they may be the work of the devil.

The best way I know to resist the devil is to repeat Scripture, just as Jesus did. And if I have verses at my fingertips, committed to memory, I can draw them out when the devil prowls around. I can call on Jesus and ask Him for help and deliverance from all my fears.

Then I deliberately draw near to God. I turn towards Him. It’s not that He meets me halfway; I just turn around and He does the rest. He is always waiting, always with me, always willing. But as I turn around to face Him, I know that He is there.

We all need to fight for faith when we’re suffering. And if you don’t recognize the battle, you will go in unarmed. You may succumb to your fears, framing and reframing your circumstances in light of your feelings rather than the truths you know about God. In our despair, we need words to cry out instinctively, words that shape our minds and our responses.

MEMORIZE: Write today’s verses on an index card. Put it where you’ll see it regularly so you can memorize it.