How Christians Should Respond To Hard Times

No matter what I face, whatever comes my way, I will praise the Lord.'

I grew up singing this particular line in the song the wrong way, until the composer, Wale Adenuga, corrected it because that is how I was taught. I was taught to sing, ‘No matter what I face when success comes my way I will praise the Lord.' But as I grew, I began to wonder if our thanksgiving to God and the joy that we have as believers should only show forth when we have ‘success', ‘success' here being when things go the way we want. What then happens when they don't?

With time, I began to reason that perhaps it was in a bid to confess positively that someone changed the line of the song, yet singing it the way it was composed does not mean we are saying negative things, because like it or not ‘success' won't always come our way when we want. Jesus did admit that we will have tribulations, but we rejoice because He has overcome them all.

We find joy in Christ knowing that even when things are not going the way we desire, we keep trusting because we know that our joy does not depend on what we have or do not have. Joy for us as believers is inbuilt. It is independent of our circumstances. Joy should be our natural response to whatever comes our way in the long run because we are always victorious and truly, all things work together for our good because we are in Christ.

Depression is real, but we overcome it with the joy that we have within. There are many examples of joy as natural responses to when things when going well and when they weren't in the epistles. When Paul and Silas sang in jail at night, after healing the girl with the demonic spirit, they sang hymns and praises to God. They were bound hands and feet, but their spirits could not be bound. The joy that they had within could not be bound either, and as a natural response, based on their regenerated nature, they began to sing praises to God and were eventually delivered from their captivity.

You can do the same if you will yield your will and emotions to the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Jane Kareem