James was a fervent young man, always passionate about the gospel of Christ. Active in my church’s youth fellowship, he not only actively reached out to new friends and young believers, but also volunteered in his school’s campus ministry. He was truly on fire for God.
A year later, however, he stopped attending youth fellowship, and soon, disappeared from church altogether. In one of his blog posts,
“Being a Christian is
too difficult.
Hate struggling
Don’t want to anymore.”
As heartbreaking as James’ sentiments are, I could understand how he was feeling. Too many times, I have hated having to struggle with temptation, with recurring sins, with doubts about God and my faith, and with submission to God. I have lost count of the times I’ve asked God to remove my sinful desires or to take me home, just so that I don’t have to struggle any more.
But, over the years, I’ve come to realise this stark truth:
the Christian life is full of
struggles.
The Bible itself makes it clear that struggling is part of every believer’s walk with God. Our spiritual journey was never meant to be smooth-sailing. God has a purpose in allowing us to struggle even as He refines us. At the same time, He has provided us with hope in our struggles.
God’s Word even tells us what our struggles will be, and how He will help us:
The apostle Paul made clear that all believers would face struggles in our walk with God—and whom these struggles would be with: “Our struggle is . . . against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
The devil is always scheming against us, and will find as many ways as he can to outwit us (2 Corinthians 2:11). The 17th-century minister Thomas Brooks listed 37 ways that the devil deceives, distracts, discourages, and destroys people in his classic book, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices.
- tempting us to lower our guard and slip into sin (for example, David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11:1–5)
- captivating our hearts with the things of the world (1 John 2:15–17)
- accusing us of relapsed sins (1 John 3:19–21)
- dividing believers (Romans 16:17–18)
God, however, has not left us defenceless. We can stand firm in the faith by wearing God’s armour and relying on all that He has provided us for the spiritual battle, as described in Ephesians 6:14–17. Check out this insightful reflection on how the armour of God protects us in practical ways.
While we have a formidable foe, God will help us be on guard against the devil’s schemes, and is able to deliver us from evil (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
The spirit of the antichrist—one who opposes Jesus—is already in the world (1 John 4:3). And everything the world seeks and advocates is not from God (1 John 2:16). We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the world’s values are poles apart from what Jesus commanded.
The world says:
Jesus said:
The world says:
Jesus said:
The world says:
Jesus said:
When we decide to follow Jesus, we will no longer belong to this world. At the same time, however, we are still living in the world (John 17:14)—and this is where our constant struggle lies.
Because we have turned our backs against the world, it will hate us for it; we will face hostility and hardship, because our way of life offends it (John 15:19). That is why Jesus said: “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33).
Yet, we know that the fleeting desires of the world will be gone with the wind; instead, when we obey God and do His will, it will count for eternity (1 John 2:17). We can focus on growing our love for Him to displace the love for the world (1 John 2:15), and let His Word transform our minds so that we do not conform to the world’s ways (Romans 12:2).
Jesus also assures us: “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). As Bible teacher and author David Cook notes, “The world will do its worst, but it will not vanquish His kingship, and in Him we also reign over all the things the world might throw against us.” We who are born of God overcome the world in Christ Jesus (1 John 5:4-5).
While it’s probably easier to blame an external adversary for our troubles, Scripture tells us that we also face an enemy within—our flesh, or sinful nature, that defies God. Because of our natural, sinful state, we want to live in our own way.
It is this God-defying, self-pleasing nature that controls our mind and affects our behaviour. As Romans 8:7–8 notes, “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”
Even Paul, the great apostle, was not spared this turmoil of struggling with the flesh. It exasperated him—he couldn’t do the good he wanted to do, but he did the evil he didn’t want to do. No wonder he cried, “What a wretched man I am!” (see Romans 7:15–24).
God has given us His Holy Spirit to help us live in a godly way in this fallen world. He is constantly transforming us from the inside, so that we will, over time, be more able to do the good that we want to do, and He gives us the strength to resist temptation to do the evil we don’t want to do.
Yet, as long as we are occupying our mortal bodies and living on this earth, we will always experience the conflict and tension between the flesh and the Spirit (Galatians 5:17). But God has set us free from the power of sin (Romans 6:7,18,22).
With the Spirit’s help, we are able to resist our flesh. As one analogy goes, this conflict can be represented by a white dog and a black dog fighting within us. Which animal will win?
The answer: the one you choose to feed. That’s why Paul urges us, “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). We have a choice to whom we yield.
It’s hard to imagine that God can transform us when we struggle with Him, but He can.
Jacob, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, had wrestled with God before he was to meet his older brother Esau, whom he had a long-running conflict with (Genesis 32). Jacob was relying on his guile and wiles to prepare for the confrontation, but the night before, a stranger turned up to wrestle with him in the desert.
Though his powerful opponent dislocated Jacob’s hip, Jacob persistently continued to struggle with him. He asked for a blessing, and was given a new name—Israel, “because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome” (v. 28). It was a blessing freely given, unlike the first-born blessing that he had stolen through deceit (see Genesis 27:1–29).
Are we like Jacob in some ways? Do we rely on our own wits and ways to succeed in this world? Or will we turn to God and ask Him to help us?
When doubts and
questions loom,
do we hold God
at a distance?
Or will we wrestle openly and frankly with Him in prayer, and seek to know Him and His will—and cry, “help me overcome my unbelief!” (Matthew 9:24)?
There will be times when we feel that we are in the wilderness, unsure of where we should go or what lies ahead. But God can meet us right there—when we feel lost, when our lives seem dry, when we least expect it. The face-to-face encounter with Him can transform us.
Our struggles on the Christian journey are not meaningless, and neither are they pointless. The pain and the trouble will all be worth the glory that we will receive from Jesus, who rewards those who overcome.
May we continue to depend on Him—and to remember that all these struggles will equip and empower us to endure, and to be found worthy when He returns.
Although Eliza Tan eats to live rather than lives to eat, she still enjoys her food and wholeheartedly agrees with Ecclesiastes 3:13, "That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God."
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