Every believer will face hardship at some point. It may come through sickness, the death of someone we love, family trouble, financial problems, disappointment, loneliness, or circumstances we never expected. Becoming a Christian does not protect us from the troubles of this life.

Jesus made that clear when He said in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Notice that Jesus did not say we might have trouble. He said, “In the world you have tribulation.” Trouble is part of living in a fallen world.

The danger is not simply that hardship comes. The danger is what hardship can do to our faith if we are not careful.

When life hurts long enough, we may begin asking questions. Why did God allow this? Why has He not answered my prayer? Why does it seem like everyone else is doing well while I am struggling? Does God really care about what I am going through?

Those questions can become dangerous when we allow our circumstances to tell us what to believe about God.

Our circumstances change. God does not.

When we are hurting, we must remember that our feelings are real, but they are not always reliable. There will be days when God feels very near and other days when He seems far away. Our faith cannot depend upon how close God feels. It must depend upon what God has said.

Psalm 34:18 tells us, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

God has not abandoned us simply because life has become difficult.

One of the first things hardship tries to steal is our trust. We pray, but nothing seems to change. We ask God for help, but the problem remains. Eventually we can begin thinking that prayer is not working.

That is when we must remember that prayer is not a way of forcing God to do what we want. Prayer is bringing ourselves, our needs, our fears, and our pain before the One who knows exactly what we need.

We may not understand what God is doing, but we can still trust who He is.

Hardship can also cause us to pull away from God’s Word. Sometimes when people are discouraged, they stop reading the Bible because they do not feel like reading it. Yet that is when we need God’s Word the most.

Faith needs truth.

When our mind says, “God has forgotten me,” Scripture reminds us that He has not.

When fear says, “I cannot make it through this,” Scripture reminds us that God will give us the strength to endure.

When we wonder whether anything good can possibly come from what we are experiencing, Romans 8:28 reminds us, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

That verse does not say everything that happens to us is good. it does say "all things to work together for good". Some things are painful. Some things are tragic. Some things leave scars that remain for the rest of our lives. But God is able to work even through those things for His purpose.

Hardship can either drive us away from God or drive us closer to Him.

James 1:2–4 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

James does not tell us to enjoy suffering. He tells us to understand that God can use trials to produce endurance in us.

Endurance means we keep going.

We continue praying when we do not see an answer.

We continue reading God’s Word when our emotions are telling us to give up.

We continue trusting God when we do not understand what He is doing.

We continue following Christ when life does not turn out the way we hoped.

Paul knew what hardship was. He wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8–9, “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Paul was not pretending that everything was fine. He was afflicted. He was perplexed. He was persecuted. He was struck down.

But he was not destroyed.

That is an important lesson for every believer. Faith does not mean pretending that hardship does not hurt. You can cry and still trust God. You can be confused and still trust God. You can tell God that you do not understand and still trust Him.

The question is not whether hardship will come.

It will.

The question is what we will do when it comes.

Do not judge God by the worst day of your life. Do not allow one painful season to erase everything you know about His faithfulness. Stay in His Word. Keep praying. Stay close to other believers. Remember what God has already brought you through, and refuse to allow your circumstances to become greater in your mind than the God you serve.

Hardship may shake us, but it does not have to destroy our faith.

Sometimes the strongest faith is not the faith that confidently walks across the mountaintop. Sometimes it is the faith that, from the bottom of the valley, quietly says, “God, I do not understand any of this, but I still trust You.”