Trusting and Believing: Devotions From Time of GraceSample

Why Is It so Hard to Trust God?
Pain

My grandfather used to say, “When you’ve got your nose in Limburger cheese, the whole world stinks.” The point? Whatever intense emotion you are experiencing right now will color your entire worldview. If you are in pain right now, it can be very hard to be optimistic, to trust that your future will ever be better.

I used to think that old people moved around and walked in that slow, stiff, crooked way because they were losing coordination or eyesight. Chronic back trouble has helped me understand, as I myself have winced and limped through my daily routine, that a great many people, old and young, are in physical pain all day, every day. That’s why they walk that way. And that also may be why they find it hard to trust.

Hours before his death and resurrection, Jesus predicted terrible hardships for his disciples: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Here is our hope--not in our tired and aging bodies, not in our brilliant minds or wealth, but in the words of the One who has suffered like us and for us and who has conquered death, hell, and pain for us all.