Bible Verses About Trusting God in Difficult Times

A cursory glance at the news headlines or the trending hashtags on social media is enough to alert you to the fact that we’re in trouble. There is a lot of good that is going on in our world, but that fact cannot blind one to the reality that things are not what they’re supposed to be. And it’s not just in the world out there, though that affects us personally too. It’s the fact that in our personal lives, things are also not what they’re supposed to be. Trusting God in such times is tough.

For every one of our personal problems that cause us concern and anxiety, there is someone out there selling or offering a solution. Some of these solutions work, and they can address the problem effectively. At other times, what is offered as help becomes another hindrance. In everything, in good times or bad, one constant that ought to mark our lives is trust in God. It is especially pertinent when we are going through difficult times.

God is an ever-present help in times of trouble

When we go through difficult times, we can become prone to negative thoughts. Those thoughts can be about ourselves, our circumstances, other people, and even about God. We can berate ourselves for the choices we made, or attack others for how they contributed to the problem.

We may blame God for the circumstances we’re in or consider ourselves abandoned by Him. These thoughts can add to the existing anguish of dealing with illness, financial pressure, job loss, relationship conflict, or the loss of a loved one that we’re already going through.

One of the things that comes through repeatedly in the Bible is that God stands ready to bless us. God’s purpose and plan is to bless the world and rescue it from itself and its self-destructive tendencies (Genesis 12:1-3; John 3:16-21; 1 Timothy 1:15-17). God works in all things to bring His purposes to fruition (Romans 8:28), and even difficult times don’t stand in the way of God’s purposes and plans.

It is important to understand God’s fundamental posture toward us, as this enables us to turn to Him freely in difficult times, even when the difficult times we are in are because of the foolish or sinful choices we have made (Luke 15). God embraces broken people like us if only we would humble ourselves and turn to Him.

Bible verses about trusting God in difficult times

When you’re going through a difficult time, it can be both easier and harder to turn to God for help. It can be easier to turn to Him then because of our sheer desperation. You trust Him to help you because you’ve got nowhere else to turn for help. It can, however, also be harder to turn to God in difficult times because it can feel natural to blame Him for one’s present circumstances, and we can turn instinctually to other solutions that seem more viable.

Trusting God can happen in small steps, but ultimately it is about looking to Him and placing your hope on Him coming through for you. It’s not a substitute for putting in work. You can work and trust that God, who gave you the strength, gift, and opportunity for work, will make whatever work you’ve done bear fruit.

But if that work doesn’t bear fruit the way you hope, trusting God means continuing to believe that God’s intentions toward you are good and that His plan will nonetheless come to pass.

Some verses in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah speak to what it means to trust God in difficult times, and what that means in that season. He wrote,

But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? – Jeremiah 17:7-9, NIV

Prior to these verses, Jeremiah was talking about how trusting in human beings and their abilities while turning one’s heart away from God will lead to ruin. In contrast, the one who trusts in the Lord, the one whose confidence is in God and not in themselves, their resources, or their circumstances, shall flourish.

The interesting thing about these verses is that even that person will go through heat and drought, but their experience of those hardships will not leave them bereft or fruitless.

God’s people are not promised a pain-free existence in this world. What God promises is that He will sustain them through that hardship and bring them through on the other side. He asks us to rely on Him and to have our confidence founded upon who He is, and nothing else.

When you’re in a storm, it can be hard to trust God, especially if you’ve never done it before, or if you’re carrying hurt or disappointment with God. Contact us today to walk with a Christian counselor in Newport Beach, California to help you process these experiences and reconsider what it looks like to trust God in difficult times.