Thoughts About Trusting God During the Rough Times

There are times we never saw coming. We never truly know what is ahead in our lives.

I have always trusted in God to keep me and He has so far. It is not an easy trust sometimes.

We all go through things. That’s life. We can’t get mad about who’s helping or not helping us. We still have to get through the rough parts.

There are times I am strong in my faith and there have been times I doubted if I ever had any faith at all. That’s why they are called trials and tests. We don’t truly know how strong our faith is until it is tested.

Mine has been tested. I can’t say that I have gotten an "A" on this test. I just hope I will pass.

Some may think I’m silly for trusting in God but that’s all I’ve ever known. I know people don’t believe in God. I know the strong feelings people have about Christians and religion. I can’t control what others think. I know who I am and my own experience.

I often listen to the song “Remember to Remember” by Stephen Curtis Chapman and this verse:

And now I'm looking out at the road that's waiting
But my eyes can only see so far out ahead of me
As sure as the sun will shine there'll be more mountains I will climb
And more deep dark shadowlands where desperate faith is all I have
Until I'm home, I'm resting all my hope and trust
In the only One whose name is: God with us

God never promised it would be easy.  I know some Christians who have nearly lost their minds when they have a flat tire thinking something like that shouldn't happen to them.  Life hits us all in some way.  We don't always expect and there are no guarantees that things won't get rough.  We do the best we can and trust God. 

Life can be rough, and sometimes it feels like everything is falling apart. Maybe you’re facing loss, uncertainty, or a problem that just won’t go away. In those moments, it’s easy to feel scared, overwhelmed, and unsure of what to do next. But you don’t have to carry that burden alone—God is with you, even when things feel out of control.

The truth is, trusting God in difficult situations isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about believing He is still in control, even when life doesn’t make sense.

Hard times don’t last forever, but God’s love does. When life feels overwhelming, take one step at a time. Pray, even if all you can say is, “Lord, help me.” Surround yourself with people who will lift you up. Read His Word and let His promises remind you that He is working behind the scenes. You may not see the full picture now, but one day, you’ll look back and understand how God was guiding you through it all.

Thoughts About Driving In NYC

I finally did it today.  For the first time since we have moved here, I drove into Manhattan.  

It was actually better than I had expected but I was also blessed to have lesser traffic than usual.

Since March, we have been going into the city three times a week for appointments.  With the subway not being a good option, we have been using ride shares such as Lyft and Uber for our trips to/from the city.  Unfortunately, the ride shares had pushed us to our limit with how absolutely ridiculous they drive without regard to health issues.  I have had to fuss at too many drivers lately.  When the ride is more stressful than the actual appointment, something is very wrong.  

So, as the last resort, I decided to drive today.  We have been taking the same route for months so I knew what to expect (usually expect the unexpected) so I took the leap to get behind the wheel and drove into the city.  I have past driving experiences in Puerto Rico, Panama, Atlanta and Nashville but nothing quite compares to New York City.  There are a lot of vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles and other obstacles in tight spaces.  

After a dreadful ride share experience on Tuesday, I starting getting myself mental prepared for driving into the city.  I was finally tired of the stress of depending on a "professional" driver to drive us.  I waited up until we had to leave this morning to go through with it.  

The drive was the most stress-free ride we've had.  I do drive rather cautiously and I am in no way a great driver but I drove at the pace we needed and completed the task.  Crystal did a great job of navigating.  When you drive here, you seriously need as many extra "eyes" as you can to get around.  She navigated me perfectly.

This is more than just tooting my own horn (no pun intended) but a very sad commentary on a majority of the Lyft and Uber drivers we have experienced. We have paid way too much for each ride for most of them being crappy rides and dealing with drivers who are unable to understand or sympathize with our requests for a calm ride.  The ride share services fail at helping those who need something special for their ride experiences.  We never asked for a celebrity chauffeur treatment, just someone that wouldn't drive like a crazy taxi driver in NYC!  I have a long list of drivers I have blocked from accepting our requests.  That is pathetic.  

Will I continue driving into the city?  Probably.  Let's just enjoy today's experience.  We can't assume that it will always be like it was today.  

For today - at least - I can say that I drove in Manhattan.

What if or Even if?

When we pray, we are told to have faith and trust God. We pray with faith hoping that God will answer our prayers - - but what if He doesn’t? 

When we prayer and have faith, there are no guarantees that it will turn out how we hope it will. Sometimes it could be worse. What happens to our faith then? What if God doesn’t come through for us?

It’s a scary thought.

I think about the story of the three Hebrew boys who refused to worship the king and were thrown into a fiery furnace. When given the opportunity to recant, they stood firm. I’m sure they prayed that God would save them but now they were in the furnace it seemed like they were going to die. Even with that, they said that even if God didn’t deliver them that they still would not bow. The King made the furnace ten times hotter, but the Hebrews were not burned, and the king even saw a fourth person in the fire with them. They were delivered.

I wish I had faith strong enough to say that “even if” God doesn’t answer my prayer that I will still trust Him. It’s easy to say that you will when you aren’t going through something, but it is a different thing when you are in the furnace.

You pray for someone you love to be healed and they die.
You pray for financial help, and you are forced to go bankrupt.
You ask for deliverance and your situation get worse.
You ask for God to remove a difficult person from your life, and He replaces them with two difficult people.

Regardless of how much faith we have, we aren’t ready for the opposite answer to our prayers. That is when our faith is truly put to the test.

Fear is “what if”
Faith is “even if”
It is a huge leap. It takes a lot of courage to get to the “even if” place.

The “even if” place is trusting in God even if things get worse or totally opposite of what we are praying for.

That’s the place we need to be. That’s the place where there is true peace. It’s a peace that can’t be explained or understood. The Bible even tells us that when it says that the peace of God, which goes beyond our understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds. (Philippians 4:7). This describes a place we have a solid trust in the middle of our anxieties. Instead of being dependent on a perfect or stress-free circumstance this is an internal stability that can only be from our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Even if things don’t work out, we will still trust Him?

I’m trying to get there.