Transcript:
Hello, welcome to Walking in Step with God, I am Steve McDonald. Today we explore the topic “DiscoHello, welcome to Walking in Step with God. I am Steve McDonald. Today we explore the topic “Trust God in Difficult Times” as we continue our series “Gratitude and Trusting God’s Plan”.
We all have ups and downs in life. Today, we are going to put a spotlight on the seasons in our lives where things are challenging, stressful, confusing, or all of the above. It can be very easy to veer off track of a life of faith when stressors are pushing and pulling us in all directions. It can also become tempting to become doubtful of God’s presence in our lives when our circumstances seem unfair, or impossible to navigate. When we feel frustrated, defeated, saddened, and depleted, it can be -very- difficult to keep our trust in God.
Today, let’s explore ways to have a posture of trusting in God, even when things seem impossible to bear. There will be situations in our lives that feel out of control because we truly don’t have control, but God is always in control, so let us discuss what we can do to keep our hearts and minds focused on Him even when life doesn’t make sense.
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Welcome back. Let’s continue in our discussion of ways to focus our minds and hearts on trusting in God in difficult times.
Pray
One of the most powerful things we can do when we are dealing with things in our lives that make us feel overwhelmed is pray. Prayer is our 24/7 lifeline to the one who knows every single detail about the circumstances that are making us feel helpless and hopeless. Our loving heavenly Father truly desires for us to go to Him whenever we need His guidance, love, and instruction, no different from a parent’s desire for a child to come to them when they are in need. God’s arms are wide open for us to return to Him regardless of the difficulties we are encountering or the reasons the difficulties are there. We can and should turn to Him in prayer, regardless if our circumstances result from the actions of others or actions that we have done that put us in a difficult situation. God’s grace is absolute and complete, and He will never ever leave you or forsake you in your time of need.
Even though God already knows your exact situation, we should turn to Him in prayer to share our hearts and concerns. God hears all our prayers and has a response for every one of them.
We must also keep in mind that how God responds to prayer may not be what we had in mind, but we can know that he has heard every single word of our prayers and that we can always ask for Him to provide His guidance. We can trust in the fact that God will respond to our prayers according to His will and timing.
I have certainly had situations in my life where I felt as though I was having a crisis, and I pray to God, with an expectation of how that crisis could be solved according to me. What I’ve learned over the years is that God’s solution to our problem may have very little to do with -our- solution to a problem. I have learned that the most important thing we can do in these times is to know in our hearts that God knows best. .
When you feel that life is unfair and you are having a difficult time navigating through challenges, turn to God in prayer. He is always listening and will be there at your side.
Praise
One way we can show God that we place our trust in Him, even in the most difficult circumstances, is to praise Him. When we praise God in the middle of chaos, we are showing Him we are keeping our minds and hearts focused on Him, and not our troubles.
Regardless of how you praise — be it speaking out loud, singing or dancing or all the above — let your praise be your demonstration to God of your sincere desire to trust him.
Praise God in advance, letting Him know you look forward to how he will intervene in your situation.
Praise God in advance that His will – will be done.
Praise God in advance when you get the medical report that says things are not improving, for God’s divine healing and blessings of wisdom to the doctors and specialists involved with your care.
Praise God in advance when you’ve had a falling out with a loved one or friend for softening both of your hearts to explore forgiveness even if it’s not deserved.
Praise God in advance for promotion and increase even though you’re living paycheck to paycheck right now and barely have enough to keep the lights on.
Praise God for all the ways He will see that you have everything that you need, although the balance in your bank account would say otherwise.
Learn to praise God in all situations as your way of letting God know you place your complete trust in Him.
Surrender
As we are navigating a life that feels unfair and is full of circumstances that are overwhelming and stressful, we have discussed praying to ask God for guidance and direction. We have praised Him in advance for how He will show up in a way that His will will be made known. The next step we can take in placing our trust in God is to surrender.
It can be difficult to wrap our heads around the idea that we let go of control of a challenging situation in order to resolve a problem. The truth is, when we surrender our challenging circumstances to God, He can and will show up in ways that we never dreamed possible. He will reveal wisdom about areas in your life that you had never considered. He will give you direction and guidance that gives a new perspective of what you previously thought were challenges and difficulties. God will use others in your circle to help you navigate through a difficult time when He knows they can bring skills and resources that you otherwise will not have access to. God will orchestrate conversations and meetings and strategic influence in order to see his perfected plan come to fruition.
Surrendering to God is one of the wisest things that we can do when we are in trouble or we don’t know how to deal with life’s most challenging times.
I admit it’s not always easy to surrender because it is in our nature to want control over every single aspect of our lives. We keep control in our lives to ensure outcomes that meet our expectations. The truth is that God knows best in every single situation – so much more than we do. The wisest thing we can do amid a challenging situation is to surrender to Him. God does want you involved and He wants you to do what you know to do, but you can still surrender a situation to Him knowing that He knows the best way to reach a solution including your involvement.
For most of us, learning how to surrender has been a gradual process over time. I am no different. I will not tell you I surrender every single time I get stuck in a challenging situation, but I am learning to do my best in every situation and ask God to walk with me as I go. I surrender my circumstances to God, letting Him know that I’m going to try my best, but I yield to His will and His direction.
If you are going through a difficult time in your life, I encourage you to consider surrendering it to God through prayer and praise making it clear to Him you want Him to be in control and that He may use you as He sees fit.
Wrap Up
In today’s message, we discussed things we can do to place our trust in God even as life seems difficult. We learned that in the middle of any challenging time, we should turn to prayer to share our heart and our thoughts with God. Of course, God already knows every detail of our situation, but turning to Him allows Him to intervene and help you in a way that He could not if you keep Him out of it. Think about being a parent with adult children, and you know the difficulties they are going through. Yes, you may help without their knowledge, but when they turn to you, there is a shift in how you can work together with your child to find a resolution to their challenges together. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father is no different.
We learned the importance of praise. Praising God even when things are not going our way is a powerful way to share with God that we love Him and we trust in Him even if it isn’t clear what is going to happen next. When we praise Him in advance, we are making clear that we know He will intervene in a way and manner that He knows is best. Last, we discussed the importance of surrender. Of course, God does desire for us to do our best with what we have, but when we take the additional step of surrender, we can experience God’s influence in an entirely new way. God knows precisely what you can and can’t do in every situation. Instead of struggling through difficult times that stretch beyond what we can handle, we should do our best the way we know how, then surrender the entire situation to God, knowing that He will know precisely when and how to intervene to yield outcomes that He knows are best.
Placing complete trust in God is not an easy process. In my case, it took many years to finally understand the level to which I can truly place my trust in God in every area of my life. The more you learn to trust, the more you will see Him show up in ways that are truly remarkable. We must take the first steps towards Him because we have free will to go it alone or include God in our day to day life. God is truly elated when we -choose- Him. He is overjoyed when we -choose- to make Him a priority in our lives and to include Him in every aspect of our lives, be it when times are good or when we are in a season of difficulty and despair.
Place your trust in God, today.
Are you interested in discovering more about the guidance offered in this message? Learn more in the companion article Going Deeper with the Word: Trust God in Difficult times
