Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
(John 6:29 ESV)
What do you do when you’re overwhelmed by your trial? Some suffering has started to dominate your life, seeping into your time, relationships, heart, and mind. Your difficulty is so intense; it consumes you. The pain is too much to process right now.
Overwhelmed by Some Trial
You want to pray, but your mind goes blank when you sit down to express your hurting heart to God (Psalm 77:3).
You want to worship but have no heart to sing. Music feels stale and praise feels too exhausting (Proverbs 25:20).
You want to serve others, but your crisis has demanded all your time, energy, and maybe even your health, and your energy is poured into surviving.
You feel that you have nothing to give others and nothing to give God. You’re in need beyond ways you can practically provide for yourself.
What Does God Want from Me While I Endure This Trial?
Here, as in any place, as a follower of Jesus who loves him and desires to live faithfully devoted to him, you’re asking, What does God require of me here?
God is very clear with us about the one work that he has called us to, the work that pleases him most. When you are in the throes of darkness, tossed about in the waves of suffering, burdened beyond your strength, God wants one thing from you—and it’s the same thing he wants from you when all is well.
God wants you to believe.
The One Work God Wants You to Do in Your Pain
Believing is a kind of rest (Hebrews 4:11). Believing isn’t about what you do for God. It’s about embracing all that God has done for you.
We read in the book of John of a time when people asked if they could share in the mighty works Jesus performed. Jesus responded to them by saying that the true “work of God’ is to believe in Jesus (John 6:28-29).
If you have put your trust in Jesus, then he has atoned for your sin (1 Peter 3:18). God has brought you into his family and made you his child (John 1:12). God has loved you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). God has promised to be with you every step of your life-long journey (Hebrews 13:5). God has promised to strengthen and uphold you (Isaiah 41:10). There is a Bible before you filled with promises from Almighty God—a God who gave his only Son as your ransom, that you might be welcomed into his loving care.
And friend, if you are reading this and have not put your trust in Jesus, we plead with you to be reconciled to God by believing in his Son Jesus! God offers you eternal life today. Jesus lived a perfect life before God on your behalf, died the death your sins deserve, and was raised from the dead, so that he might offer you new life—a life of restored relationship with God.
What God wants of you is for you to believe that he is who he says he is, and that all the promises he has made to you are true. The center of those promises is the person of Jesus himself—all he has done and all that he is.
So How Do I Please God in My Pain?
When you are beside yourself with pain and absorbed in grief or sorrow, and you long to please the Lord, remember Jesus’ word: Believe.
God doesn’t need you to sing or serve or pray. In fact, he doesn’t need anything from you, and never has, and never will (Acts 17:25). Rather, he chose to love you out of his own abundance of love, and it gives him great joy to be your Father (Hebrews 12:2). Eternal life, God’s favor, and God’s love are his to give, ours to receive.
How do you please God in your pain? You keep trusting him. Believe.
Trust that whether you are praising or panicking, God’s everlasting love for you will not fail because Christ has made you his own (Romans 8:38-39).
Trust that whether you are singing praise or crying out in pain, you are clothed in Jesus’ righteousness as his gift (Romans 4:5).
Trust that you are held in the arms of a faithful Savior who does not relate to you based on your prayers but based on his promise to keep you (Matthew 6:7-8; John 6:39).
Trust that Jesus is good, even when you’re experiencing great evil (Nahum 1:7).
Trust that you’re fully forgiven because of Christ’s sacrifice when the devil comes to accuse you in your vulnerable state of pain (Romans 8:1).
Trust that Jesus loves you, right here, right now.
What does God require of you in the throes of suffering? Keep believing, friend. Keep trusting in all that Jesus is, and all that he says.