"In Times of Trouble"

In Times of Trouble

“Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” Psalm 50:15

If you are a living human being you are going to have troubles in your life.  I’m sure most of you have experienced this many times. There are really only two ways to handle the troubles you face.  You can (1) Try to handle it yourself or, (2) (With God’s help).

When I try to get myself out of trouble without God’s help, I generally either fail or botch it up somehow.  When I turn to God for help, He never fails me.  There is a verse in the Bible that has carried me through so much and this is it, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” [Psalm 46:1]  Now let’s make it more personal, “God is MY refuse and strength.”

Let me further explain how much God wants to help you.  “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him”. [Psalm 91:15]  This is God speaking to you and telling you that if you call to him, he will answer and he will be with you and deliver you from the trouble you are in.

Along with trouble, can come consequences.  If you have gotten yourself in trouble with the law, God will be with you, but as for all legal problems, come consequences.  If you are struggling with debt, you must pay what you owe.  However, God can show you ways to take care of that.  Things that seem hopeless to you, look different to God.  In Jeremiah 33:3 God tells you this, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”

It may be that you are having health issues and have just about given up.  You may have prayed and feel that God did not answer your prayer.  To put it simply – life happens! We are born, we grow up, we grow old and eventually we die.  This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care, or that he leaves us to flounder around on our own.  He is at your side every step of the way through life.  Psalm 9:9 tells us that, “The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.”  Just saying these words have been a great comfort to me in my times of trouble. 

Each of us face problems every day, but God gives us strength to go on.  Jesus promised us that “He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you.” [Hebrews 13:5]  Most believers understand this because if we don’t believe what Jesus said, we surely can’t count on the fact that we will go to heaven when we die.  After all, our hope is that heaven is our eternal home.  Titus 2:13 tells us that we should be “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.”

We are now living in ‘perilous’ times and the world as we knew it is falling away from any form of Godliness. In Ezekiel 7:7, we read about what is coming.  “O people of Israel, the day of your destruction is dawning. The time has come; the day of trouble is near. Shouts of anguish will be heard on the mountains, not shouts of joy.”  This ‘time of trouble’ will be like something we have never seen before and yet, God is watching over His people and will protect them from what will come.

Think on this; “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.”          [Daniel 12:1] If you have asked Jesus to forgive your sins and come into your heart, you are saved.  That means that when Jesus comes to gather his “own”, he will take you with him to heaven.  This is what is called, “the Rapture”.

So you see that Jesus will never leave you alone, so ‘Rejoice’ in times of trouble – help is on the way!