Help for Your Hard DaysSample

God Is Always For You

A friend encounters an unexpected crisis. Our little circle makes plans to provide meals, meet practical needs, step in and do what we can. We’re there to offer support. And every time I watch this happen, it’s like a miracle to me.

What’s an even greater miracle is that God does the same for us. When something difficult happens, it’s easy to wonder, “Where are you, God?” And his answer is always the same: “I’m with you.” Sometimes he makes his presence known through the hands and feet of people in our lives. Sometimes he quietly whispers to our hearts. Sometimes he works through circumstances to let us know we’re not alone.

Why does God do this? He loves us and is always for us. David says, “He rescued me because he delighted in me” (Ps. 18:19). Yet when bad things happen in our lives, one of the first assumptions we often make is that God must be really upset with us.

David certainly could have believed that to be true. When he wrote the words above, he’d spent years running from King Saul. It would have been easy for David to assume, “I must have heard God wrong. He doesn’t want me to be king after all. If he did, the current king wouldn’t be trying to kill me.” Instead David steadfastly holds to the belief that God loves, supports, and even delights in him. He trusts that even in this challenging circumstance, God is acting on his behalf.

What assumptions have your circumstances led you to make about how God feels about you? Are those really true?

The enemy would love to persuade you that God is against you. He would love for you to become convinced that you don’t have God’s support. He would love to make you believe that you’ve fallen beyond God’s ability to hold you up.

Will you pause for a moment and reject those lies? We live in a fallen, broken world, and we all face difficulties. That doesn’t mean we’re being punished. Jesus lived an absolutely perfect life, and yet he was still “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isa. 53:3). None of us gets to go through life without hard times. That doesn’t say anything about you except this: you’re human.

God knows that as humans we’re weak and frail. He knows we need help. He wants to offer that to us. Yet it’s up to us to receive it. And if we think he’s mad at us, then that’s a lot harder to do. Perhaps it’s time to shift our perspective to align with what’s really true.

God isn’t mad or disappointed in you.

He’s relentlessly for you.

And he will give you the help you need.

God, thank you so much for supporting and rescuing me. Because of the challenges I’m facing, it’s sometimes tempting to believe you’re mad at me or that I’m a disappointment to you. Help me to believe you delight in me and your love for me is secure forever. Amen.

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Thank you for joining me for this 5-day plan inspired by my bestselling devotional book, What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days. For more resources and a free gift of 12 Fear-Fighting, Faith-Building Scripture Cards, visit HolleyGerth.com/YouVersion.