Tag Archives: Trials and tribulations

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – What to Do When Trouble Comes

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Joyce meyer

Fight the good fight of the faith. —Ephesians 4:1-2

Sooner or later we all have some trouble in life.We all have some trials and some tribulations. Everybody goes through times of testing. And not every storm shows up in the forecast. Some days we can wake up and think everything is going to be great. Before that day is over, we may be tested by all kinds of trouble we were not expecting.

Trouble is part of life, so we simply have to be ready for it. We need to have a planned response to trouble, because it is more difficult to get strong after trouble comes. It is better to be prepared by staying strong.

The first thing you need to do when trouble comes is pray, “God, help me stay emotionally stable.” Do not let your emotions overwhelm you. The next thing you need to do is trust God. The instant that fear rises up, pray.

Stay emotionally stable, trust God, and pray. Then while you are waiting for God to answer, simply keep doing good. Keep your commitments. Do not stop serving the Lord just because you have a problem. The greatest time in the world to keep your commitments to God is in the midst of difficulty and adversity. When the devil sees that trials and tribulations won’t stop you, he will stop troubling you for a while.

To be prepared for the next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, practice saying, “I am going to be faithful to God, and God is going to give me double for my trouble. Satan, you thought you were going to hurt me, but I am going to get a double blessing, because I am one who diligently seeks the Lord.”

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Two Homes, Two Foundations

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We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. —Acts 14:22

We don’t always like to read a verse like that. We would rather the passage read, “Through many days of perpetual happiness we enter the kingdom of God.” But that isn’t Scripture, and that isn’t life. Trials and tribulations will come. Job said it well: “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1, NIV).

Jesus once told a story about two men who built two homes. They may have been built at the same time, close together, and even with the same floor plan. One of the builders, however, erected his home on shifting sand, while the other built on a stable rock foundation.

Then the storms came, hitting both of those houses—hard! The house that had been built on sand collapsed and fell in upon itself, while the one built on the rock stood firm. The obvious moral of the story is to build your life on a foundation that will last, like the one we find in the pages of God’s Word.

But here’s an application we sometimes miss: The storm came to both lives. The wind beat on both houses. The rain poured on both building sites. The man who was wise and carefully chose a stable foundation got hit with the same hurricane-force winds as the man who foolishly took shortcuts and didn’t bother to plan ahead.

We all will experience storms in life. Good things will happen to us as well as tragic and inexplicable things. Every life will have its share of pain. Even so, we have a God who, despite the worst tragedy, can bring good out of bad. That is not to say that God will make bad good because bad is bad. But it is to say that good can come out of bad. As Romans 8:28 affirms, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV).

Life is a process, and as finite beings who live moment to moment, we can’t see around the bend. We can’t discern God’s ultimate purposes. But we can know that the ultimate result will be good . . . because He is good.

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013