Can We Talk? Biblical Counsel for All of LifeSample

We all react differently when trouble shows up. Some people struggle with depression and doubts, others with fear and embarrassment, and others with anger and hopelessness. God uses even the difficult circumstances of our lives for his redemptive purposes. Romans 8:35-39 assures us that God loves us even amid the hardest adversity.

Seeing all the ways God shows his love to you in hardship will not erase your trouble, but it will strengthen your faith, which is of greater worth than gold. When your faith is strengthened, your hope and your love will also be strengthened. Here are seven ways God lovingly meets you in your suffering and uses your troubles.

1. To enhance your relationship with him.
2. To help you experience Christ’s sufferings
3. To expose your remaining sin
4. To engage you in the Body of Christ
5. To exhibit Christ’s work in you
6. To equip you for wiser, more compassionate ministry
7. To elevate your longing for Christ’s return

The God of grace can bring good things from bad things. He reverses the curse and redeems a fallen world. He takes sinful, suffering people, displays his love, and makes them glorious. Whatever your specific hardship, you can be certain of these truths.

As you move forward, select one hardship you face, review the above truths, consider the loving biblical purposes that might apply to your hardship, and talk to God about them. Ask him to reassure you of his love and to show you the good purposes he might be trying to cultivate in you. Ask him to give you a heart that wants to know him better and to grow in his grace so you can say, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes” (Ps 119:71).

Nothing is more important than knowing God loves you; he is with you in the hardship, is in control, and has loving purposes for you in allowing this trouble.