Trusting God in times of distress can be difficult if he has previously failed to meet our expectations in earlier trials. Since God’s ideas and methods are always perfect, our dismay stems from faulty expectations.
Walking in harmony with God amid affliction requires us to align our expectations with his intentions.
No Exemptions From Hardship
Nowhere in the Bible does God promise to protect us from all pain and sorrow. He never guarantees our health, wealth, success, safety, or satisfaction.
In fact, Jesus said the opposite.
He warned that personal tribulation would be a permanent part of our lives in this fallen world.
Blessings Are Unearned
We wish God’s aid were transactional so we could influence its delivery.
In return for believing that God exists, doing our best to abide by his principles and precepts, and praying fervently, he would arrange our lives so that we would find happiness in all our endeavors and never face affliction.
However, God does not bestow temporal blessings based on the strength of our faith or the steadfastness of our righteousness.
The apostle Paul illustrates this point.
Paul was a godly man and a successful missionary, yet God did not reward his faithfulness with a comfortable life. Instead, he endured hunger, beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and other hardships.
God’s Priorities And Our Preferences
God never promises to answer every prayer as we wish, no matter how zealous we are.
Even Jesus uttered a request that went unfulfilled. The night before his crucifixion, he prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”
He was asking God to implement an alternative salvation plan that did not require his suffering and death, if such an option existed.
There was no alternative, as we know. Jesus suffered greatly over the next several hours and eventually died. Yet God used his affliction to save the world.
God’s Will Supersedes Ours
The second sentence Jesus prayed that night is key to surviving distress intact.
He said, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” This statement implicitly acknowledged that God is sovereign, that his perfect ways are higher than ours, and that he is supremely trustworthy.
Knowing this, Jesus could, by faith, subordinate his preference to God’s will. He understood that if allowed to suffer, God would repurpose his pain and agony to produce a great good.
The same is true for us.
God may choose to alleviate our distress according to our preferences. We should pray for this outcome for as long as it remains possible. However, as with Jesus, he may not answer our prayers as we wish, at least initially.
Nevertheless, God is perfect. His unfailing love motivates him to care for us amid affliction and to produce goodness from it. He remains utterly trustworthy, even in tough times.
Therefore, by faith, we can subordinate our preferences to his intentions.
Like Jesus, we can qualify our petition for a positive outcome with the phrase, “Yet not as I will, but as you will,” knowing that if God allows us to suffer, he intends to repurpose our pain and agony into an instrument of goodness, whether in our lives, in the lives of those around us, or in both.
Read About What We Can Expect From God
God does not always shield us from distress or bless us as we wish, but there are several things we can rightly expect from him.
