Is God for Me or Against Me? What Hardship Says About God

When the diagnosis comes back, or the account runs dry, or the loss lands on your doorstep, a question follows close behind: is God for me or against me? Some of you already have an answer ready. God is teaching you something through this. That answer sounds humble, and it quietly puts the hurt in God's hands. Test it against Jesus.

Is God for me or against me when hardship comes?

If you call sickness or lack God's lesson, you have already decided that God is the one doing the hurting. Jesus drew a line between two kinds of work:

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, NKJV).

Two works, two sources. The thief takes life, and Jesus gives it. Don't switch those labels and then wonder why God feels hard to trust. Loss, heartache, and suffering are not from God, and the thief is the one who brings them.

Take sickness. One believer who had cancer never concluded that God gave it to him to teach him something. The thought never occurred to him. Cancer belonged to the devil, and he was healed. That year was the worst of his life, five years ago. He has been clean for four years, and what carried him through was a settled understanding of how good God is.

Suffering, loss, and heartache are not from God. Neither is poverty. Lack in any area, whether of mind, spirit, emotions, health, relationships, or resources, is the absence of God in that area. Wherever God is present, abundance follows.

What does Jesus show about sickness and God's will?

Look at what Jesus actually did. Acts 10:38 says He “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (NKJV). Healing is described as doing good. Oppression is described as the devil's work. If you want to know what God is like, watch Jesus heal people. Don't look at the sickness and then assume God sent it.

Psalm 107:20 points the same way: “He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions” (NKJV). Notice who is sending what. The Word brings healing and deliverance. The verse does not show God sending destruction to teach anyone a lesson.

Abundance is more than a bigger bank balance. It reaches your health, your relationships, your emotions, your resources, and your ability to do good. So the real question is whether your picture of God matches the life Jesus brought.

Does God provide enough for every good work?

Grace is not a promise to scrape by. Second Corinthians 9:8 says, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (NKJV). Sufficiency comes with a purpose: an abundance for every good work, to proclaim Him and glorify Him.

Notice what the verse does not say. You don't pay for grace with pain. Romans 5:17 speaks of “those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness” reigning in life through Jesus Christ (NKJV). Righteousness is received as a gift. Jesus took the suffering so you would not have to carry it. No amount of hurting buys you anything from God. You receive His goodness by faith.

Deuteronomy 28:3-13 lists blessing on the body, the fields, the animals, the children, and every coming and going. If that was God's heart for His people under the law, why would a better covenant bring a worse life? It doesn't. Under the new covenant you have everlasting life, the mind of Christ, His righteousness, His faith, His authority, and His own nature living in you. Blessing is already yours. Now let it reach your circumstances.

Where does lack come from?

Lack has sources, and God is against every one of them. Start with the question that matters: is poverty a result of God's righteousness, or of Adam's sin? It came from sin. God made an earth full of abundance before sin ever entered, and that abundance was made for the children of God, not for the sinner. So identify which realm you want to live in. Poverty is not the God-given realm. We should hate it, on every level.

Injustice is one of the sources. Unjust governments, unfair workplaces, and people who cheat and manipulate others all produce lack of some kind: lack of freedom, peace, joy, or resources. God is just, and He is against it.

Sickness is another. It steals money, steals relationships, steals opportunity, and steals vision. It is not a tool of God. It is part of the enemy's arsenal, and it comes to take your life.

Ignorance of God is a barrier too. Not knowing God is a major barrier to abundance. Wrong teaching, repeated for centuries, turns into a people's culture. They assume they don't deserve anything good, and when good comes, someone calls it lust and mammon. The question is not how much money you have. It is the condition of your heart. A dark heart is a problem with twenty dollars in the bank, and a pure heart is in good shape with twenty billion. Which heart reflects God's heart? He is a cheerful, joyful, generous giver. What about you?

Laziness creates poverty. Is God for laziness? You already know the answer.

Persecution is real, and God is not for it. Just because Jesus said it would come doesn't mean He wants it. It is a warning that darkness will try to snuff out the light. That is no reason to stop preaching the good news. People have lost their lives for that gospel, and the world's trouble does not change what the gospel is.

How should you think when circumstances contradict God's goodness?

Romans 12:2 calls you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that includes how you see God's goodness. Start with two questions. Which environment reflects God's nature, abundance or lack? Then ask what Jesus desires, abundant life or theft and destruction. Acts 10:38 settles that one. He went about healing all who were oppressed of the devil.

Then ask which kingdom you are representing. Light or darkness? If you are trying to protect darkness from a message of God's goodness, you are working for the darkness. Jesus preached the kingdom, and whatever is happening in the world does not change the gospel. We keep preaching it, because God's goodness to us is how the world gets reached with life.

Psalm 115:14 puts it in one sentence: “May the LORD give you increase more and more, You and your children” (NKJV). That is the heart of God for you.

For more on what abundant life looks like, read The Abundant Life God Actually Wants for You.

Go deeper: watch Free Indeed, Episode 155 on YouTube.