{As I write these words to you on Trusting God when He Breaks Your Heart, I tread very cautiously, as I understand the great responsibility of speaking rightly and truthfully to you on the character of God. With much prayer and after months of working to write this article so that it speaks nothing more and nothing less than God declares in His word, I ask God to show you glorious truths about Himself and to reveal the knowledge of God to you in a deeper and more intimate way.}
Christians are often quick to be “nice” and “careful” to not blame God for the tragic and painful valleys in our lives. But in doing so, we’re not always very accurate to maintain the integrity of His words about Himself. When our hearts are broken, our lives are devastated, and our dreams turned to grief and pain, we blame Satan, our enemies, or even “bad luck,” but Christians often hesitate to credit God as the Author of their heartaches and sorrows.
Job says: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
WE know from scripture that the end intended by the Lord was good and that God is good and merciful, but, from what we see in scripture, JOB never saw “behind the scenes” to the spiritual interactions in the heavenlies. He was called to trust God, but it doesn’t seem that God reveals to Job during his earthly life the workings of Satan and the purposes of Job’s sufferings (Job lost his animals, his fortune, his servants, all his children, and his health).
WHO does scripture say caused Job’s sufferings: Satan or God?
Job 42:11, “[Job’s brothers and sisters] consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the Lord had brought on him.”
We read in Lamentations 3: “[God] bent His bow and set me as a target for the arrow. He made the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts… He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.”
I’ve heard Christians encourage one another not to blame God in our times of deepest pain and miry pits of depression and struggle. We refer to God’s “allowing” our struggles and pain (which is true), but we are careful not to assign too much “cause and effect” to God. We plead with others not to grow angry with God, and we say things like, “God must have thought you were strong to let you go through this,” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” or Marilyn Monroe’s “I believe that everything happens for a reason.”
I disagree with those who extrapolate beyond that on which scripture is clear — the Bible does not say that God created evil. God does only good, and His way is perfect. However, in dismissing erroneous theology, sometimes we throw out clear biblical truth in an effort to counter what we believe to be incorrect.
We oftentimes discount the fact that God is responsible for your pain and my pain. Nothing can get to you unless He allows and ordains it. He gives and takes away. He opens and closes. He kills and makes alive. He IS sovereign, and He IS perfect.
My beloved friend, if God “causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness. For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men” (Lamentations 3:32-33). He is gracious, compassionate, and loving, and He’s the only One on Whom you can cast your pain and struggle and heartache.
You need to take up your case with God.
Just as it was not given to Job to understand in this life why God brought this trouble on him, it is oftentimes not given to us to know why God brings pain and heartbreak into our lives. You may not know this side of heaven the purpose and meaning of the grief that God has brought upon you, but God HAS given to you to know that HE IS GOOD. He is compassionate. He is holy and right and just. He is full of lovingkindness. He is merciful. He loves you.
And God calls you to trust Him.
“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”1 Peter 4:19
Receiving the pain and heartaches of my own life as bestowed by the hand of my Father has been incredibly difficult and very personally soul-wrenching. However, by KNOWING God and KNOWING His truth, I am free, and He is my peace.
I have wrestled with God, and God has blessed me.
Before I began blogging here at Bless Your Heart and Home, I wrote an article on what God has taught me about Himself through a particular trial I have dealt with during the last few years. While the article was written last fall the week after our second miscarriage, I offer it to you this week with much prayer and in the hope that the words and rawness of my grief and struggle during that time will lead you to the cross and to the only One who can bear your pain and heartache. I will be posting it here very soon.
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job 13:15
With much love,
amanda
Resources and Links
..A song for the brokenhearted: “Though You Slay Me,” by Shane and Shane, and featuring John Piper.
..Yes, God Will Give You More than You Can Handle, by Michael Hidalgo at Relevant Magazine.
..When God Doesn’t Make Sense
..When the Hurt Runs Deep
{Bless Your Heart and Home is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com}
This is a very beautiful article.. This is advice written from someone with personal experience in grief and heartache. I have Aspergers and OCD, and have had a diagnosis of BPD given by two different Psychiatrists (although I believe I have recovered from that).
During my struggle with my blasphemous intrusive thoughts and my general obsessions I have often felt most abandoned by God and family members when I felt I needed them most. Even now I don’t know if I can trust God or whether He will break my heart again. I fear trusting Him because I don’t want to feel abandoned by Him again. But after reading articles like this I choose to trust God. I choose to believe in the Jesus who loves all people and who dines with sinners, and to continue moving forward.
If anyone reads this please pray for me. I still feel like my voice isn’t heard and like my opinions don’t matter. God bless everyone here.. God loves us all
Know that you are not alone in your struggle . I feel the same way because how can you believe that the all powerful God loves you as His child but yet sits by and allows the enemy to have his way in your life? Well , although I am shaken to my core sometimes I also take comfort knowing that there can still be victory after the darkest night . Remember Jesus is our example and even in His suffering He said, “My God , why have You forsaken Me…. “. If The Lord Himself struggled in the flesh then so will we but if we continue to hold on to this truth we will receive the same as Christ because of His sacrifice and struggle God gave Him a name that is above every name …. and when we call on that name , every knee must bow. I know this to be true/truth! I pray this will soon become your reality, victory and testimony, in The Name of Jesus Christ our Lord ! Amen!
God admits to creating evil in Isaih 45:7. It’s right there in the bible.
He’s talking about literal light, being a light source, and dark, being the absence of the light source, (night and day) – not good and bad… He SENDS good and bad times, but that doesn’t make Him bad. We are the ones who choose to act sinfully towards the “bad” times. Look at the Lord Jesus’ life! He literally had to die on the Cross for our sins. That is not a fun time, in fact, I would call it a bad time considering how much pain He had to bare for OUR sins… not even His own! But He did it to SAVE us, and to be the Light of this dark, evil world. Bad times create perseverance and an ability to completely trust God! It is our decision to give into the pain and depression, and the enemy doesn’t help us get out of it. Look at the life of Job, if that wasn’t a bad time… Job went through almost his whole life in suffering, yet he leaned on God because He is faithful in all circumstances, and the Lord saw him! He saw Job’s perseverance, and we can all read about how greatly he was blessed! 3 times more than he had before. How could you not call God good and faithful? Job was rewarded for his perseverance, and so our we because of the death of Christ Jesus. We have ETERNAL LIFE!!! Even though we have bad times, we can have peace and assurance knowing that we will be lifted up to Heaven, and being able to give God the true and pure glory He deserves. We deserve death! But He is so gracious and merciful to keep us from eternal gnashing of teeth, weeping, and suffering. It’s right there in the Bible. I’ll be praying for you, Pete! Lots of love from your sister in Christ 🙂
I don’t feel God’s goodness and I don’t trust him anymore. 25 years of suffering because of an unfulfilled promise have broken me beyond repair…
God is here. He loves you. Don’t give up. Give up what you have been waiting on and let God fill you. His love really is better than life. I had to almost lose my life to realize I didn’t need my earthly love. It was God my heart was seeking the whole time.
I’m struggling with trusting god as well. It’s like I did everything I could for him and he didn’t care one way or another, in faith I understand that its his will before anything but am I even allowed to be hurt in it. It’s like making him and what i thought he had for me weren’t what he wanted’ like he wanted me to be mean and hateful bitter and resentful, like they say you can do nothing without god, but what about when you do it in love and out of love and it still crumbles, at some points i doubt he even cares about me, i have a complete lack of control of my life and its like sinners be blessed, arent i at least supposed to be resonably happy in this life at least? even job had someone to talk to and he had his wife, ive never had anyone to care about me and now, in his ways this includes the almighty. Ive thought about suicide multiple times but he wont let me, he also wont let me speak or move on my own, all of my actions and words my life is controlled by him, i would leave him if i could, but there’s only one god and you have two options either heaven or hell, so what choice do i have, ask anything in his will and you will recieve, so what did i do wrong? i should have never followed him nor allowed him in my life, at this point my life should be considered hell but his prescence is still here, so what should i call it? but he is great and mighty in his ways, amen?
its like nothing i do is right, and i no longer want to be a believer, all of the love i had for him has been turned against me for him, and i am nothing. sometimes i think he just wants to take credit for the good things in my life, if there is such a thing because at this point i dont even want to come out of my depression. im comfortable in my sorrows at this point and dont want anything else because happiness and determination have only been dissapointments and used against me at this point. so thank the lord for his ways and his thoughts and also his love, amen.
I hope you are having a better relationship with God right now. and I just want to say that you’re not alone, I agree with you 100%, I feel this immense heartache when I do anything that is related to God, reading His word, seeking Him, it seems that He never shows up and so far away from me. I tried everything I could for months, yet he didn’t show up nor seemed like He cares about me. I started to become impatient and angry towards God. But just believe me, when He feels so far away from us, maybe there’s something he wants to show us. maybe He is testing us, exposing us, to show us who we really are. To show whom are you truly serving, ourselves or Him ? you have to also realize that the devil will use all sort of trickery, even we may not even realize the malice and wickedness of our own hearts. There just so little we can do on our own without Him. Let Him come to you, just still your mind and change your focus from yourself to God. Let Him come to you instead and may you be able to find Him. I’ll be keeping you in my prayers, regardless if you’re still in the faith or not. God bless you.
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KaDenah, I realize I missed seeing your comments, and I’m so sorry for my delayed reply. If you’d like to continue to message, please email me at amanda [at] blessyourheartandhome [dot] com <3 - amanda
Thank you for writing this. I think it’s about as close as you can get to making sense of things. But at some point, don’t we have to ask: if a human was causing us to suffer like God does, could we continue to call him good? I think the answer would be no. And so then the question becomes: what reason do we have to keep believing that God IS good? Because other people say he is? Because a book says he is? It’s definitely not because God tells me he is good, because he doesn’t speak to me except through other people, and he inflicts me with suffering. I cannot call someone like that “loving.”
I feel you. I’ve often thought this myself. I wonder too about having the “Job” experience, not all at once, but spread out over decades; the slow accumulation of disappointments, regrets, tragedies, consequences, etc.. When it just piles up and each next straw doesn’t break the camel’s back, because the camel’s back is shattered into dust… It makes one wonder. And I think it’s fine to wonder. Job wondered aloud for us all to read. I often think about the paradoxes of life; how one person seems blessed while others suffer horribly. I think of my own life, with its silent struggles and twenty plus years of no answers, functional poverty, lack of meaningful work, lack of opportunity to minister in hiearchical churches, etc.. There really are no answers for these things…I’ve come to conclude from now on in my life I will not offer people answers in their suffering. I don’t know. I will offer myself to help in any way that I can. That is all I can do. Here are my hands; let them be years. Here are my ears; yell at them if you need. Here is my chest; beat your fists upon it and cry. That is all.
Hi Connor! this may be 4 years late, but hopefully this’ll help someone in the now. God doesn’t make things happen, He may allow bad things to come, but that’s because He wants to grow and refine us. A way you can know God is good, is that He remains faithful and true, even when we are not – choosing something/someone over the Lord, denying Him in our daily lives, not reading His Word or praying, etc… Can you recall anytime you’ve done something bad? That was YOUR own decision to do that, not the Lord’s. His love is evident in the Cross, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) And His love is also evident in just simple life: being able to breath, live, and exist. God IS good. It is our own faults for the sin of the world, we are the ones who choose voluntarily to go against the Lord.
I can’t seem to overcome my broken heart over my adult children.. This has been going on for such a long time probably at least 25 years. They are 36,35 and 29. It all started when my husband left around 25 years ago. Things have got gradually worse especially over the last say 5 years to the stay where my middle child never contacts me, the eldest lives overseas and is cold towards me and the youngest my son who has severe adhd has been a major problem. Police still come to my door looking for him. I love them so much and want a beautiful relationship with them all. I have tried to be loving, left them alone, then contact them. NOthing I seem to do makes any difference. I honestly think what has been the point of me bringing 3 beautiful children into the world, whom I love so much who have no respect for me and show no love to me. This is not what I want and there is so much I could say and its probably complicated. Only that I am a christian and my hope is in the Lord for making beauty out of ashes. I am daily heart broken and cant seem to overcome it. God says he is near the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds. I believe his word and so desperately want to feel different than I do. I have also had cancer twice in the last 5 years, estranged from my narcissistic family.
Amanda, I left God at an early age and really seem to fall. When I tried to come back to God I was attacked spiritually. Stripped. I was so into my self and flesh…….I did not even get to have the holy ghost dwell in me long. I do not know or fully experience the love of Jesus and never got relationship with Him. I feel so turn away. My sinful life has made me hurt painful from bitterness and uglingess…I feel God will never deal with me again. But why not? I did not get to know Him…distracted……Now My heart is hard? and my mind sear? I just feel lost and in darkness. Shamen I feel I plrayed around at church and with the spirit. I am sick from emotional and mental attack……bitterness has eatten away at me and had made me old and it hurts….I want it to stop and do not know what to do…..I feel I denied God my focusing on others and not worshipping Him and praising Him. Never visually seen Him in the spirit. Hard time…..very ugly. I truly wish I never desired to get married over God and never been with men before marriage. Shamed.
I feel very much the same way. All my life God has been intangible to me. Something that others had contact with and spoke about and are so sure of, but there is always that little small question of the reality of God vs, just going along with everyone says like I KNOW it’s true when I don’t KNOW. I have never had a supernatural experience that I can refer to and say, yes, its TRUE! I constantly beg God for that. I have had negative possibly supernatural experiences, but I was under the influence at times. These were the exact opposite of what I begged God for. I am heart broken that God hasn’t sent an angel, or something similar, or given me an instantly healing, or something on a GOD like scale to push my faith from shaky to concrete. I feel like that poster that says “I want to believe”
then search for him with all your heart, it may be you where never born again, your surprise could ahead! don’t give up, read the old prophets and the new testament, they are a very good guide on how to seek God.
have a relentless heart, pray for God to have mercy on you and grant you repentance, sometimes it can be us who are in denial, seek Him. i pray He helps you.
Trusted & prayed Lord day & night but my son turned out in addiction & bad company & in worse my husband got heart attack & even after all this my son beats me & my husband
There is no god to save us & my son don’t pray or trust in God anymore
Oh, I am heartbroken with you. I’m so sorry. Please contact the authorities regarding your son — the police are God’s provision of protection for you in this type of situation. I will pray for you, your husband, and your son.
Your son chooses to beat you and your husband! Not God. He has his hell to pay, he needs to repent, kick him out of your house before he kills you both. God is good to those who trust him. He is good to his people.
I lost my dad.why did god take him away.he has made us sad and heartbroken.I can’t ever understand why a god would do that. Not ever.I’m angry and I feel cheated.I believed god wouldn’t do that.but now I don’t know.I don’t think I ever want to know.
Susan, I grieve with you about the loss of your father. I am so sorry. In John 6:68, after a lot of Jesus’s disciples left Him, He asked His 12 disciples, “Do you want to leave, too?” Peter’s answer to Jesus has been very helpful to me during my own times of distress or anger at God — “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” I think that Peter voiced the truth that we also have to embrace when we don’t like something God does: there is no other One to turn to but the Lord God, and there is no other way to come to God except through believing in His Son, Jesus. In your pain, I believe that the greatest truth God wants you to understand is that He loves you. He demonstrated that love for you by sending Jesus to die on the cross for your sins. When your circumstance cause you to doubt His love for you, remember the cross and how He sacrificed Jesus for us so that you and I could be His children. I don’t know why God took your dad, but I hope you will pray and ask God to help you trust Him through this great pain that you are enduring. I am praying for you this afternoon. Love..amanda
Wow, what a helpful post. Amen. Just what I need to hear as I walk through having some trouble getting pregnant (and miscarried a while back). Thank you for sharing this. It is beautiful to see what God does in our lives as we move towards Him in our pain.
So God and Satan are the cause of pain?
Just like when I get attacked by demons everyday and as result. It’s easy to love God when he breaks your heart while Satan is crushing your soul and dragging you to the pit of hell. I don’t understand?
I’ve been praying so hard to be delivered from the enemy today, and seeing this true article really discourages me today.
Praying for you, friend, as you walk through heartbreak and hardships <3
I hope that you know, that I myself feel like you did but God has a better plan for us. I once was enrolled to do a cosmetology course and the teacher and school location, I did not get. I was so mad at the time and disappointed…but God placed me with a better teacher who was loving, kind and was a praying woman. The teacher I had wanted to go to students dropper out of her class, they didn’t like how she treated them and until this day my classmates and I love the teacher we got because God had blessed us with an awesome teacher of his choice. He allowed this betterment, that once seemed ljke a disappointment turned out to be a blessing for me.
Rhianna, thank you for sharing that testimony with me! Sometimes we get to glimpse God’s grace here in this life, and at other times we entrust our circumstances to Him without understanding His mercy to us until we cross into eternity. I appreciate your telling me about how God was so gracious to you in this situation! ♥
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I’m glad to be of some help.
Wow, thanks for posting this! I lost my mom, suddenly, 7 months ago. I’ve never had my faith tested as much as I have through this. I just really needed to read it..
Tiffany, I am so sorry about your mom. May the Lord’s grace and comfort continue to abound to you, and I’m so grateful that the Lord brought you to read this post and that it encouraged you. I’m praying for you this afternoon. <3
So glad you speak to the ‘God won’t give me more than I can handle’. I have heard people say that way too much lately and it is NO where in scripture, so thank you for speaking that truth!
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I hear it a lot, too, and I know it’s hard for those who are hurting — God HAS given them more than they are able to bear, but He tells us, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” Jesus, I am resting, resting..
Hmmm. I agree completely. However, am confused by the, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” example. Reason being that if He gives us excruciating pain and we don’t die or commit suicide then, we handled it, hence proving the statement to be true. Other than that mild confusion, I love those BOLD Christians who speak on God true and whole character. Not just the fluffy persona. Thank you.
Katty, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. To clarify what I meant, an example from my own life would be the evening when I realized I might be miscarrying my first pregnancy. I told my husband that I COULD NOT go through that (I understood I could physically live through it, but I didn’t feel that there was any way I could handle it.). However, my worst fear came true, and I miscarried that child. God gave me more than *I* could handle, but His strength was made perfect in my weakness, and He gave me grace to trust Him in my grief. {2 Corinthians 1:8-11} <3 amanda
Excellent job on this article! I love to see God’s sovereignty explained so well. God is so good to redeem our sufferings. I have wrestled with Him too and in the end, became still and embraced Him – receiving it all with gratitude.
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My sister-in-law reminded me of that recently…God redeems. Thank you for your kind and encouraging comment, Yvonne. <3..amanda