If I’m being honest, life is hard. It has all these twists and turns, and sometimes we can get caught in it. Any day can be tough to endure when things are constantly pushing us down. So, what do we do to feel better and to live peaceful days?
Maybe you’ve been devoted to Jesus for years and you feel like nothing has changed that much when it comes to hard times. Maybe you’re new to being a child of God and you don’t know how to cope with hard days.
If you are at any point in your walk with God, then this post will hopefully give you some insight.
Before I learned how to get through the storms in my life, it was very hard for me to carry on. I was at the mercy of all the chaotic waves being thrown at me, and it drained me. But then God pursued me and gave me His strength, and I finally felt like I could endure the hard times in my life because of Him. If you’ve just had the worst day, or this entire season has been crazy, then the best advice I can give you today is that you can’t endure through all the hard times in life alone. I hope that these tips that I’m learning will help you too!
1. You always need God.
I’ve never withstood a storm on my own. Ever. I’ve learned the hard way that when I don’t go to God first, the results are always negative. When I choose another option before God, I’m still pretty much drowning in the storm. As His child, The Lord is always near to you and will never arrive late to your call when you need Him. He is always holding His hand out to you. Doing this is a process, and although it will feel unnatural at first, letting go and reaching out to Him is the absolute best thing you can do. Sometimes when I’m going through a storm, I speak out my struggles to others around me first, in hopes that they will help me out. Although others can be supportive in hard times, I always need God first and foremost. Have you relied on someone other than God to completely take your pain away? People are sent to you by God to be in community and relationship with you, but they can never fulfill God’s role in your life. I’ve found that the best way to get through a storm is to look to God first, and let Him take care of me, and then secondly talk to others about my situation.
Isaiah 25:4 says, “For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,”.
God is our shelter from the storm.
2. God always sees you in your storms, and He will always save you.
One of the main reasons I wouldn’t surrender my own plans to God was because I thought that He didn’t see me. Many times, God has lovingly shown me that it was me not seeing clearly in those instances. Other people might not see me, but God sees me, and that will never change.
If you ever feel like God doesn’t see you, then something in your life could be in between you and God.
Whether that’s a person, a fear, an addiction, or the devil’s lies, sometimes these things will try to get in the way of our view of God.
The devil knows that He can’t change God’s view about you. That’s why he will try to change your view about God.
The devil tries to change your view about God through lies. Just like he lied about God in the garden of Eden to Eve, he does the same thing today. He’ll send lies like, “God doesn’t love you as much because you’re a woman.” Or “God doesn’t care about your feelings, because in Joshua 1:9 He said to be strong and courageous.”
The devil has sent those exact lies to me in the past in hopes that I wouldn’t trust God to pull me out of my situation. But God has shown me that he created both genders with equal value, (Galatians 3:28) and He does care about my feelings (Psalms 56:8, 1 Peter 5:7).
Matthew 14:29-31 says, “He said, “Come.” So, Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
If you think about it, a possible future without Jesus would be a big disaster filled with pain. But He saved us from that future because He loves us.
Jesus knows the pain that you feel right now in these hard times, and He’ll never ignore you. He’s always one step away, because He loves and cares for you so much. The passage above shows that if you put your faith in Him, He will always save you.
Whenever life seems to push you down over and over and you feel stressed by the weight of it all, talk to God about each thing that happened. When I give all of it to Him, I can feel Him taking the weight off my shoulders. His love to pull us out of hard times in life shows us that He cares about how we’re feeling and what we’re walking through.
3. Let go of the things that are hindering you from seeking God.
This one is very hard, but so important. Ask yourself, “What am I doing that is hindering me from surrendering this to God and becoming closer to Him?” Sometimes our thoughts can be the culprit. Other times, people can pull us away from the truth that we need to hear.
When we let go of things God wants us to let go of, we can fully focus on Him, and the devil doesn’t have a grip on us anymore. The devil wants you to seek worldly and fleshly desires instead of God.
God is all powerful; he can make Himself known to us in hard times.
He will never walk away from us, but our eyes can be pulled away temporarily by distractions if we don’t focus on Him.
When we have our hands full with our own plans, or our alternative “savior” route, the outcome will never be victorious. We must let go of the small distractions and seek God. When storms happen, completely fall in the arms of the Lord. Focus your mind on how much He loves you. Allow every other thought to be surrendered to Him.
4. Know that God is eternal, and the storms are temporary.
One sunny evening, I was driving around town. I drove to the backroads of the city, and I looked to the side to see half of the sky becoming dark. It slowly went over the bright blue sky, and a storm began.
As I watched the storm take over the clear sky, God showed me something: that each storm will soon pass, but his faithful love will endure forever.
After all, the storms pass, but a sunny sky is revealed once again each time. I drove through the storm for about thirty minutes, and then I was in sunshine. I was shocked.
God has shown throughout history that the sun always rises each morning without fail, and when the storms come and go, the sun remains in the sky as a bright light to the world. This shows God’s character- that He is the light of the world and that He will always be there for us to shed light and warmth to us.
What storms might you be walking through in your life right now? They might not be physical storms, but they can wage war inside of us.
Storms can make you weary and dismayed. But God promises sunlight again if we believe that. Holding onto other things like people, hobbies, or that distraction can only comfort us temporarily but God promises lasting strength and comfort.
The storms in life will not be as scary or impossible as our perspective thought because the Holy Spirit in our hearts will give us a new perspective- that of the Lord’s!
When I became thankful of the Lord’s character during the storm, it passed quickly for me. After the storm was over, I saw the most vivid rainbow I’ve ever seen in my life. God is so faithful that He brings a beautiful picture of a promise that the storms never last forever to us.
5. God can use storms to grow our faith.
Sometimes, hard seasons can work out for the greater good, even if it’s hard to understand during it. After all, rainbows only appear after storms, and stars only appear at night.
We might wonder why God allows tough situations to turn into something good. But Jesus himself dealt with incredible amounts of pain for something amazing: to pay for the sins of the world if we confess with our mouth that He is Lord, and that we believe in Him.
If Jesus wouldn’t have ever died on the cross, we wouldn’t have a bridge way to the father in heaven.
The best way to handle them is having the Lord by your side.
You aren’t alone.
Storms in your life can not only pass by God helping us, but if we keep our focus on Him and not the storm, He is sure to walk us through it.
I hope that this post encourages you! Thank you for reading!
Verses to reflect on
“And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
- Matthew 8:24-27 ESV
“He said, “Come.” So, Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
- Matthew 14:29-31 ESV
“For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,”
- Isaiah 25:4 ESV