Life is often hard, but God is always good. His love for us is both unfailing and unconditional. He is infinitely compassionate and benevolent.
God cares for us so much that he has obligated himself to help us endure our afflictions, to produce goodness from them, and to resolve them as he deems best.
A promise he made centuries ago summarizes this commitment.
The promise—God will surely come to your aid—applies to every hurting person who seeks him on his terms.
Nature Of God’s Aid
God helps us cope with affliction by delivering peace, hope, comfort, strength, and stamina, as we walk in harmony with him.
He produces goodness from our suffering, both in our lives and in the lives of those within our sphere of influence.
He resolves our situation in accordance with the designs and objectives of his plans for us and the people in our orbit.
Right Expectations
If it were up to us, God’s aid would be preventative. He would arrange our lives in such a way that we never encountered affliction.
At the very least, he would minimize our suffering when we encounter affliction by quickly improving our adverse circumstances.
But as we know from experience, God does not always alleviate our distress as we wish for us or as we expect from him.
Suffering Raises Doubts
For this reason, suffering can raise doubts about God that make us reluctant to trust him.
However, suffering is not evidence that God is untrustworthy. It is the inevitable consequence of the sin that infects the world.
Promise Evidences Truths
God’s promise of aid justifies our trust in him during distress.
The promise—God will surely come to your aid—includes six inherent truths that affirm his character, compassion, and competence.
God exists. He is present with us. He sees our plight. He cares about us. He has the resources to help us. He has obligated himself to help us.
Note the extra emphasis in the promise.
It does not merely state, “God will come to your aid.” It declares, “God will surely come to your aid.”
Primacy Of Faith
Trusting God amid affliction is easy when our ordeals are brief, infrequent, and mild, and they never violate our sense of fairness.
Trusting him when our suffering is severe, continuous, or unfair can be problematic. These conditions require us to exercise faith.
Exercising faith means choosing to believe what God has revealed about himself, through nature and in the Bible, rather than inferring from our afflictions that he is mean, aloof, powerless, or non-existent.
By faith, we walk in harmony with God during distress under the assumption that he is always good, his ideas and methods are always superior to ours, and his love for us is indeed unfailing and unconditional.
By faith, we presume he will fulfill his promise of aid.
Walking In Harmony With God
God provides a common good for everyone, but only those who walk in harmony with him gain access to the full array of his aid.
Walking in harmony with God requires us to be reborn spiritually, commune with him regularly, and obey his precepts as consistently as we can.
We can begin to walk in harmony with God at any time, regardless of our past unbelief or present unrighteousness.
Because of our sinful nature, however, we cannot live in consonance with God through our efforts alone. We must rely on the Holy Spirit for assistance.
In response to our contrite request, he strengthens our stamina, intensifies our noble desires, reinforces our self-discipline, and explicitly empowers us if needed.
Personal Transformation
God changes us for the better as we walk in harmony with him amid affliction.
Subject to our permission, he reorients our lives around his plans, priorities, principles, and precepts, much to our ultimate delight.
He produces in us the divine attributes that constitute true contentment.
God Is Enough
God also draws near to us as we walk in harmony with him during distress.
He reveals, in time, aspects of his excellence that we would never comprehend if life were always easy.
We learn through these adverse experiences that he is who he claims to be—our refuge, our comforter, our redeemer, our deliverer, and our friend.
We come to understand that when other sources of contentment fade, God himself is enough to satisfy our soul.
Welcome To WillSurely.com
Level One of this website expounds on God’s promise to come to our aid amid affliction. Level Two addresses the alleged incongruity of our suffering and his goodness. Both levels include insights about walking in harmony with God.