When What You See Doesn’t Match What God Has Said
It’s so easy to look at the disappointments of life and simply accept what we see. It’s easier to sink into sadness—to curl up in a ball and cry until there are no more tears left. When this kind of pain greets us every day, it’s part of human nature to want to do anything we can to make it stop. We want to know where we went wrong so we can fix it, but even more than that, we want to know why our Heavenly Father allows us to go through so many difficult times. We want to know what we can do to make our situations and circumstances better. We want to get back to the time when life seemed to play fair and our relationship with God felt like it was in a really good place.
But sometimes there is no going back. Sometimes God is calling us to move forward with Him, and moving forward requires us to stop allowing what we see and feel to dictate how we respond to God’s goodness. Our circumstances may be telling us one thing, our emotions may be telling us something else, but neither has greater authority than what God has said. There comes a point when we have to take our eyes off what life appears to be saying and deliberately begin saying what God says.
Praise Him
It’s hard to praise God when you don’t feel your best emotionally. When sadness, disappointment, fear, and frustration have taken over your thoughts, sometimes those emotions are all you can think about. We often associate praising God with joy—with those times when life is going well and our hearts are overflowing with gratitude. But praising Him in a dry season, in a season of trial and tribulation, when nothing seems to be changing and you don’t particularly feel like praising Him—that’s the challenge.
But that is also where our faith has an opportunity to speak louder than our feelings. James 4:8 (NLT) says, “Come close to God, and God will come close to you.” Praise is one of the ways we turn our attention away from everything that is trying to consume us and deliberately turn our hearts toward God. We remind ourselves of who He is. We remember what He has already done. We declare that He is still good, still faithful, still sovereign, and still worthy of our praise, even when our circumstances have not changed.
God cares about how we feel, but our feelings cannot determine whether He is worthy of our worship. If we only praise God when we feel joyful, when the prayer has been answered, or when life is going the way we hoped, our worship becomes dependent upon our circumstances. Jesus said in John 4:24 (NLT), “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” There are times when true worship means coming before God with tears still in our eyes and pain still in our hearts and praising Him anyway—not because we are pretending everything is all right, but because we know that God is still God.
Why Do We Suffer?
1 Peter 2:21 (NLT) says, “For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.” Following Jesus Christ does not exempt us from suffering. Jesus walked in perfect fellowship with the Father, yet He endured tremendous suffering while He was on this earth. His suffering reminds us that difficult seasons are not necessarily evidence that something is wrong with our relationship with God. We may not always understand why He allows certain things, but we can trust that He is with us no matter what we’re going through. Even in the midst of a rough season, our Heavenly Father is able to continue His work in us—to strengthen our faith, deepen our dependence upon Him, and teach us to keep following Jesus even when life is difficult.
Speak the Truth
When trouble comes, our emotions can quickly begin telling us what is true: Nothing is going to change. I can’t handle this. God has forgotten about me. But this is when we must deliberately bring our thoughts and words back into agreement with God’s Word. 2 Chronicles 15:7 (NLT) says, “But as for you, be strong and courageous, for your work will be rewarded.” God has never promised that we won’t have difficult seasons, but He has promised that He will never leave nor forsake us. The enemy would love for disappointment to weaken our confidence in God, but we don’t have to allow what we see to become greater than what God has said. Even when our circumstances haven’t changed, we can speak the truth about who God is, what He has promised, and who we are in Jesus Christ.
Words Have Power
Proverbs 18:21 (NLT) says, “The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.” What we continually say matters. If we constantly speak hopelessness, defeat, and fear, eventually those words can begin shaping the way we think and respond to our circumstances. This doesn’t mean we deny our pain or pretend that everything is fine. It means we refuse to let our pain speak louder than God’s Word. Our confidence is not in our ability to say the right words and make something happen; our confidence is in God. Every word He speaks is true, and no problem, trial, or tribulation is greater than He is. We may not know how or when our circumstances will change, but we can continue trusting Him while we wait. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Say What God Says”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.
