When Your Life Gets Hard, Remember That It’s Not Your Life
Author: Stan Guthrie
December 12, 2025
If it’s God’s job to make sure that each of His children is perfectly comfortable and having a good time, then even a cursory look at the real world will reveal that He is a miserable failure. Though He graciously grants us many blessings and joys as Christians, each of us will face suffering. Sometimes a lot of it. That’s part of the plan.
So what do we do with this uncomfortable truth?
I’ll be honest. Often, I complain. Sometimes I get angry with God for allowing pain and difficulties—and that’s putting it mildly. You wouldn’t want to see some of my reactions to hard things, especially when my prayers seem to be bouncing off the ceiling.
Occasionally, when it has gotten really bad, I have felt like chucking my faith. In such times, please don’t quote Scripture at me. I know all the orthodox answers and the verses that should shield me from doubt. But they can look wafer-thin before the relentless march of sleepless nights or persistent pain.
In my darker moments, I brood that if I can’t trust God to fix this “one, simple thing,” how can I trust Him with anything? But lately, as I have been wrestling with the Lord in prayer—that is, when I’m able to work up the desire to actually pray—I have seen that the problem isn’t with Him. It’s with me.
Here’s what I mean. I don’t subscribe to a full-blown health and wealth gospel—the idea that God will always give His children worldly blessings, especially if we have “enough faith.” However, I have believed, at least a little, that God owes me a certain amount of what I sometimes call a “normal life.” And by that I have in mind a life that contains some suffering, but not too much—and I get to decide how much is too much.
Yes, God is my loving Father now. But like any good father, He sometimes does things for my good that I don’t like or understand. And if the events and conditions of my existence fail to measure up to my expectations of a “normal life,” then I grouse about my ill treatment and accuse God of being uncaring—the same God who sent His Son to the cross for me!
It’s actually pretty easy for me to excuse my sinful attitude if I believe that God’s job is not to make me holy, but to make me comfortable. It’s a little harder, however, when I consider that He owns me by virtue of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
And, when you get right down to it, He does. You may see me walking around and assume that I am simply living my life, but you’d be wrong. That life, by virtue of what Christ did for me on the cross, is over.
Here are some powerful verses that make the point:
- “And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”—2 Corinthians 5:15
- “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”–1 Corinthians 6:19–20
- “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”—Colossians 3:3
- “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”—Galatians 2:20a
I am not my own. God is my owner. I am bought and paid for. Beyond that, my old life has been crucified. I died. Given all this, the Lord doesn’t owe me anything, even a so-called “normal life.” It’s all His. He gets to call the shots now—all of them. Whatever happens—good or bad—it’s about Him now, not me. To live is Christ (Philippians 1:21).
Frankly, such knowledge can be terrifying if we do not trust that the Lord who owns us is also the Savior who carries us. It’s one thing to say that God is the Boss. Martin Luther believed that—and hated Him as an impossible taskmaster. But once the fearful monk discovered via the gospel that the Lord was for him, the gates of Paradise opened and Luther was born again.
The key is trust. Do we trust that God knows what He is doing when we are experiencing life’s inevitable trials?
For me, it helps to remember that God allows only what is necessary for my holiness (1 Peter 1:6-7). My Heavenly Father permits trials not to punish me, but to purify me. And I need a lot of purifying. As Hebrews 12:11 says, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
To believe this, I need to exercise faith—to trust not only in His love, but in His powerful and good intentions. I need to desire for myself what He desires for me.
Even when it hurts.
Stan Guthrie is Director of Outreach and Mobilization for New Covenant Church of Naperville.
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