How to Seek God When Life Is Hard

Last Updated on March 6, 2024 by Stacy Averette

When life is hard, I often feel too distracted, tired, lazy, and unspiritual to seek God. I’d prefer to grab a snack, turn on the TV, and mindlessly scroll on my phone. There’s nothing wrong with those things unless we allow them to crowd out our time with God (which I often do).

Seeking God is a lifelong quest. He is the only thing that satisfies our deepest longings.

How tragic that we in this day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found him we need no more seek Him. A. W. Tozer The Pursuit of God

Do you “crave any further revelation of God” to your soul? In other words, do you want to hear from God and get to know Him yourself in a deeply personal way? Here’s what I’ve learned.

When You’re Trying to Get Your Life Together

I don’t know about you but I’ve been trying to get my life together since the mid-70s! Convinced I was doing life wrong, I was forever looking for just the right system to get organized—then life would be a dream! But here’s what I learned:

The hardships, disappointments, griefs, trials, and fear are part of what it means to be human. There’s no way out! Jesus told us that we would have trouble in this world (John 16:33). As followers of Christ, we are not always immune to, protected from, or rescued out of hardships (although that may happen from time to time by the grace of God).

Yet we crave a secret formula to happiness out there somewhere and forget that, as believers, we’ve been set apart by God Himself. Do you know what it means to be set apart? Hear it from God Himself:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.
For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;” Isaiah 43:1-3

Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, and He’s right smack dab in the middle of every hardship we face.

Is God Merely a Solution to Our Problems

In our distress, we cry out to God as if He is a faraway, last-ditch fix to our problem. But when we only see “God with us” as a solution to our problems we’ve missed the beauty of His “with-ness”.

Jesus doesn’t remove our problems and replace them with joy, peace, and rest, He is our joy, peace, and rest during the storm!

So what if you started looking at your life differently? What if, when hard times come, you view them as prompts to seek God, to feel His presence, to hear his voice, His Word, in a deeply personal way?

The problems you face might be what drives you to Him but if it is Him you seek, then His presence will be all you need to satisfy and sustain you. He will comfort and make you glad, even if your problems persist.

Seek God

• When you feel lonely, seek God.
• When you feel betrayed, seek God.
• When you feel ill-prepared, seek God.
• When life doesn’t make sense, seek God.
• When you have a financial need, seek God.
• When you’re worried about your health, seek God.
• When you’re concerned for your children, seek God.
• When you have no motivation to do your duty, seek God.
• When politics upset you, seek God.

The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

A.W. Tozer wrote those words in 1948. Since then we have exponentially increased our programs, methods, and organizations yet there is an epidemic of anxiety, fear, and worry among professing Christians. Something is wrong.

A Six Word Prayer to Seek God When Life Is Hard

Dear friend, get in a lonely place and pray, “O God, show me Your glory!”

Turn off your TV and pray, “O God, show me Your glory!”

Step away from social media and pray, “O God, show me Your glory!”

Say “NO” to anything that prevents you from having time and energy to pray, “O God, show me Your glory!”

“The skin of his face glowed because he had been speaking with God.” Exodus 34:3