A friend of mine recently received some bad news that would affect their life in a very negative way.  I was devastated, to say the least, to hear of this.  I went for a walk – to get away and think through the situation in the quiet of the day rather than remain in the busyness of my day.  As I was out walking, I heard some people around me talking about their day – and how something was bothering them.  Their issue seemed simple and tiny compared to the news that I had just heard.

I cried, and tried to pray – but honestly I had a difficult time because I felt so distant from life and from God.

It was at this point that I realized that I was not alone – but that God is always with me.  When I feel like He is far away – that is just the devil putting those lies into my head and heart.

Here are a few things to remember when you are struggling:

1. God loves us and He will not leave us.
2. The battle isn’t ours, but the battle belongs to the Lord – let Him do the fighting for you.
3. Use your energy to dig into God’s Word and to be obedient to Him by doing so.
4. The battle may be hard and long, but victory belongs to God!
5. God is good all the time – when your circumstances are darker that you could have imagined, when people are not nice, when things seem hopeless – God is there, and He is good!
6. God is good at being God. Don’t try to fix what He hasn’t assigned to you to fix.  Don’t try to manipulate or control or spend all your time/emotions trying to figure it out.  Let Him be God, and free yourself from this impossible assignment.