When the Bleachers Are Yelling "Stand Up"

Imagine you are in a wrestling match, and you are currently pinned to the mat. Your opponent is a 300-pound heavyweight named Grief, or perhaps Debt, or maybe a devastating Medical Diagnosis. This opponent has his forearm pressed firmly against your throat. You can barely breathe, let alone fight back. And right at that moment, someone sitting comfortably at the top of the bleachers—someone who hasn't broken a sweat in years—cups their hands around their mouth and yells down to you, "Just stand up!"

I imagine you would be thinking exactly what anyone else would think: Oh, thank you! I hadn't thought of that! I should just stand up. Thank you for reminding me what I'm supposed to be doing while I am currently being crushed under the weight of my own life. That is exactly what it feels like when you are walking through the darkest valley of your life and a well-meaning believer pats you on the shoulder and says, "Just trust God."

Learning how to trust God when it's hard isn't a matter of simply remembering to do it. It is an agonizing, moment-by-moment surrender. When you are laying off employees, when your marriage is dissolving, or when you are staring at an empty chair at the dinner table, the command to "trust God" can feel like a heavy burden rather than a life preserver. But look closely at how Jesus responds to our breaking points. When Mary Magdalene stood outside the empty tomb, her entire world had just violently ended. She wasn't exercising massive faith; she was broken, weeping, and profoundly confused. Jesus didn't yell at her from the bleachers. He walked right up to her in her tears.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.— John 20:15-16, KJV

Safe in the Father's Hand

We often treat faith like it is a muscle we have to constantly flex, or a rope we are dangling from over a bottomless cliff. We think that if we just squeeze our eyes shut tight enough and believe hard enough, the pain will stop and the miracle will manifest. But if faith is a rope, what happens when your hands start to bleed? What happens when you are so exhausted by the trials of this life that your fingers simply give out? Maintaining faith in hard times is not about your grip strength. It is entirely about His.

When you are depleted, when you have absolutely nothing left to give, you do not have to hold onto God. You simply have to let Him hold onto you. Jesus made a promise to His followers that was not dependent on their emotional stability, their perfect track record, or their ability to recite scripture while bleeding. He made a promise based entirely on the sovereign, unyielding power of the Father. You don't have to navigate the darkness on your own strength.

If you are desperately wondering how to trust God when it's hard, start by realizing you are already caught. You are already held. The enemy wants you to believe that if your faith wavers for even a second, you will slip through the cracks of grace and be lost to your circumstances. But Jesus says otherwise. Your security is not in your ability to cling to the Father; your security is in the fact that the Father's hand has closed around you, and nothing in hell or on earth has the power to pry His fingers apart.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.— John 10:27-29, KJV

The Compassion in the Chaos

The hardest part of trusting God in the dark is dealing with the silent, creeping suspicion that He might not actually want to help you. It is one thing to believe that God is powerful; it is another thing entirely to believe that He is good to you, specifically. We look at our messy, complicated lives, our quiet failures, and our nagging doubts, and we naturally assume we have disqualified ourselves from His compassion. We know He has the power to change our situation, but we quietly wonder if He has the willingness.

There was a man in the Gospel of Mark who felt this exact same way. He was a leper—an outcast, a man who was entirely untouchable by society's standards. His disease isolated him, much like deep suffering isolates us today. When you are in intense pain, you feel uniquely alone, like no one can possibly touch the depth of your sorrow. This man came to Jesus, knowing the power was there, but questioning the willingness. And Jesus didn't give him a theological lecture. He didn't tell him to go build up his faith and come back when he had a better attitude.

Jesus was moved with compassion. He reached into the untouchable place. He didn't just heal the man from a safe distance; He touched him first. When you are forced to trust God in the middle of an absolute nightmare, remember the touch of Christ. His response to your brokenness is never disgust; it is always a willing, reaching compassion. He is not standing far off, analyzing your performance. He is close enough to touch the very thing that is killing you, and His answer to your cry is a definitive, beautiful willingness.

And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.— Mark 1:41, KJV

When Fear Shuts You In

Maybe right now, you aren't even trying to be brave anymore. Maybe you have locked the doors of your heart because the fear is simply too much to bear. You are hiding. You are surviving. You are waiting for the other shoe to drop, bracing yourself for the next wave of bad news. Faith in hard times often looks less like a triumphant march and more like trembling behind a locked door. And that is okay, because Jesus knows how to walk through walls.

The beautiful reality of the Gospel is that Jesus doesn't require you to unlock the door and put on a brave face before He comes to you. On the evening of the resurrection, the disciples were hiding. They were terrified. They had locked themselves away because their world had violently collapsed and they were certain they were next to be crucified. They had no faith for the future; they only had fear for the present.

Jesus didn't knock on the door and wait for them to get their theology perfectly aligned. He didn't demand they conquer their anxiety before they could experience His presence. He simply appeared in the middle of their terror and spoke the one thing they couldn't manufacture for themselves. He bypassed their locked doors, and He will bypass yours. He meets us right in the center of our panic rooms.

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.— John 20:19, KJV

Trusting God when life is shattering isn't about ignoring the sharp edges on the floor. It is about looking at the hands of the Savior who stepped barefoot into the glass to pull you out. You don't need to conjure up a massive, mountain-moving faith today. You just need to look at His scars. He knows what it is to bleed, He knows what it is to weep, and He knows exactly how to hold you when you can no longer stand. You don't have to figure out how to stand up today. Just let Him hold you.