“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” — 2 Corinthians 5:7
There are days when trusting God feels natural. We can look around and see blessings, answered prayers, unexpected provision, and small reminders that He is near. Faith feels easier when what we see around us seems to agree with what we believe about Him.
Then there are days when life simply does not seem fair.
Something we love is taken from us. A prayer seems unanswered. We watch something happen that we desperately wanted God to prevent. We do everything we know to do, pray everything we know to pray, and still find ourselves standing in circumstances we would never have chosen.
Those are the days when the words “God is good” can become harder to say, not because we have stopped believing in Him, but because what we believe and what we are experiencing suddenly seem very far apart.
Scripture does not pretend those moments do not exist. The Bible is filled with people asking God questions we sometimes think faithful people are not supposed to ask. David asked how long God would seem distant. Habakkuk looked at the injustice around him and asked why God allowed him to see it. Job grieved, questioned, argued, and struggled to understand why his life had fallen apart.
God did not erase those words from Scripture, and perhaps that is because faith was never supposed to mean pretending that something painful does not hurt.
Faith is not looking at loss and calling it good. It is not forcing ourselves to smile when our hearts are breaking, and it is not finding a tidy explanation for every terrible thing that happens. Sometimes faith is simply admitting, God, I do not understand this, and I do not like this, but I am still here.
Paul tells us that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” We often hear that verse when talking about trusting God for the future, but there are times when it becomes much more difficult than that, because sometimes what we can see hurts.
We see circumstances we cannot fix, things changing that we desperately want to remain the same, prayers that have not been answered in the way we hoped, and endings approaching when we would give almost anything for more time. Faith does not ask us to deny what is in front of us. It asks us to remember that what we can see is not everything there is.
That does not make the pain disappear, and it does not mean we suddenly understand God’s reasons. It simply means that our understanding of God cannot depend entirely upon whether today feels fair.
There will be things in this life for which we never receive a satisfying explanation. We may eventually understand some of them, while others may remain questions we carry for years. But God never asked us to understand everything before we trusted Him. He asks us to keep walking with Him even when the road becomes difficult to understand.
Some days that walk will feel steady and confident. Other days it may feel like holding onto Him because we do not know what else to do. Both can still be faith.
If today feels unfair, you do not have to pretend otherwise. You can tell God that it hurts, that you are angry, confused, disappointed, or exhausted. He already knows what is in your heart, and honesty does not drive Him away.
When you have said everything you know how to say, you can remain with Him even without an answer. You may not understand what He is doing, why He allowed something you begged Him not to allow, or where any good could possibly come from what is happening right now. Faith does not require you to see the whole road before you take the next step.
Sometimes keeping faith simply means continuing to walk with God when you do not understand why the road had to go this way at all.
A Prayer for Today
Father, today I am struggling to understand why life has to hurt the way it sometimes does. There are things I wish You would change and things I desperately wish I could change myself, and I do not want to pretend that I understand when I do not.
Help me trust You without asking me to deny what hurts. When what I see makes it difficult to understand Your goodness, remind me that my sight is limited and Yours is not. Give me enough faith for this day, enough strength for the next step, and enough courage to remain close to You even while I still have questions.
I may not understand everything that is happening, but I am still choosing to stay near You and trust that You see what I cannot.
Amen.
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