A lot of believers tend to struggle to keep their faith and trust in God when life gets is tough and seems unfair. Many people believe that if God really loved us, He would take away our problems and struggles. This belief, however, is not consistent with what God tells us to expect in the scriptures.

In John 16 33, Jesus set the record straight when He said, “In this world you will have trouble…”.

What we need to understand is that sometimes things happen, tragedy strikes, things turn out differently than we thought it would, and the things or the people that we find comfort in are taken away…

Here’s what we need to remember in times like that…. Jesus never promised that if we would follow Him, that He would give us a “care-free life without any troubles.”

In fact, if we are really going to “follow Jesus” and live a life that is ready to be used by God, then we are called to a level of commitment that will trust in God, even when life seems unfair and gets very uncomfortable.

Think about it like this: There was a man who found a cocoon on his window seal. He had seen these cocoons before and he knew that very soon a beautiful butterfly would come out. So he watched and watched…

After many days of waiting, finally, something began to happen. The butterfly inside began to stretch and move, and stretch and move. After a while, there was a little tear in the cocoon, but not enough for the butterfly to get out. After a long time of watching, the butterfly started to slow down. It wasn’t moving around as much anymore.

The man thought that something must be wrong. Wanting to help the butterfly get out, he got a pair of scissors and cut the cocoon open so the butterfly could easily escape and live.

The butterfly crawled out, but that’s all it ever did… it crawled. It couldn’t fly.

You see, for butterflies, the pressure and the struggle of getting out of the cocoon is an important part of the process of pushing the colorful, strengthening, life-giving juices out into the wings – so it could fly.

The man had good intentions, but when he took away this struggle, he destroyed the butterfly’s chances of being all that it was created to be.

The insect never developed into anything more than a misshaped worm. Instead of flying so beautifully over the garden, with it’s colorful wings – it was doomed to a life of crawling through the dust.

I want to remind you today that God has some great and beautiful plans for your life and eternity; so it’s important that when life becomes difficult and seemingly unfair, that you don’t give up on God – because you can be certain that God hasn’t given up on you.

If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life struggling and “crawling through the dust” – remember that when life gets Uncomfortable, and you can’t make since of the struggles you’re going through – remember that God knows what He’s doing! God loves you too much to take away all the difficulties, stresses, and disappointments from your life. Instead, if you will keep your trust in Him, He will use them to make you better and stronger!