Preparing for Difficulty

“Into each life some rain must fall.”

I don’t remember when or where I first heard the saying above, but it goes as far back as my earliest recollections, seared into deep crevices in my brain.

While the quote comes across as negative, it’s an important truth worth exploring.

We teach our children to enjoy life and to go for their dreams, but too often we shield them from hardship and don’t adequately prepare them for difficulty. Then when they reach adulthood and experience hardships and difficulty, they’re ill-prepared to handle it.

So how can we best prepare ourselves and our loved ones for difficulty?

Preparing For Difficulty – Expect It

These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” ~John 16:33 (NASB)

Oftentimes, the difficulties that are the hardest are those that waylay us out of nowhere. We just don’t see them coming.

If we live knowing that difficulties will come–not in a fearful and paranoid way that keeps us always on edge and away from peace–but just recognizing this as part of our earthly existence, we won’t be taken by surprise. We must also recognize that we’re not alone and that Jesus has overcome the world.

Preparing For Difficulty – Decide Ahead of Time Not to Quit

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. -Hebrews 12:1-3 (NASB)

The typical thing to do when hardship arrives is to quit. Quit caring, quit hoping, quit believing, quit trying…the list goes on and on.

None of us welcome hard times. We’d just as soon side-step them and move on our merry way. But in God’s economy, difficulty is one of His best tools for shaping us into who He wants us to be. He does some of His best work in the fires of adversity. If we jump from the fire too quickly, we may not learn what God desires to teach us. We must decide ahead of time that we won’t quit, but will allow Him to have His way with us.

That’s not to say that we stay in abusive situations indefinitely. Instead, we endure in prayer and allow God to direct our steps.

Preparing For Difficulty – Ask the Right Questions

“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—

An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!

Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’

Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? ~Isaiah 45:9 (NASB)

It’s okay to cry out to God in times of adversity. He is by far the first place we should turn. But we need to be careful or we’ll take the same approach as Job–an approach that landed him in a whirlwind where God pretty much told Job what for.

Rather than asking “Why me?,” a better question is “Why not me?” And the best question we can ask in trying circumstances is: “Lord, what do You want me to learn from this?’

Preparing For Difficulty – Conclusion

Only when we realize that God has a purpose for what He allows in our lives, will we be able to weather those storms that touch all of us. Before hard times arrive, I pray we’ll understand the reality of difficulties, decide ahead of time to persevere, and turn to our Maker with the right questions and attitudes. Only then will we better equipped to handle difficulty.

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