For Christians, hard times might not be the blight on our existence we think them to be. If we believe God’s word, which reminds us that God is working in our favor as much in the hard times as in the good, we have no reason to panic during the difficult days, as we are prone to do.

The good times are to be expected, and the hard times are surprising and strange. Perhaps that unconscious assumption is causing us grief. In his book Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry describes the “old-timers” in a way that seems lost on many people today. He says: “As much as any of the old-timers, he regarded the Depression as not over and done with but merely absent for a while, like Halley’s comet.”

Though many wrongly interpret this disposition as fear, there can be health in this way of thinking. For many of us, politicians have promised us the world, and we have believed them. Conservatives and liberals alike often feel that the state of our existence should always be one of constant progress and that if we had the right politicians in place, humanity could build its tower to heaven. This thinking, of course, is foolish. There are good days and bad days ahead for all of us. Sickness, economic collapse, and natural disasters are nothing new. They have all happened in the past, and they will occur again in the future. Scripture tells us that when fiery trials come upon us, we should not think something strange is happening to us (1 Pet. 4:12). Though this verse applies primarily to persecution, it is true of any hardship.

To make this more personal, as long as our health is robust and our jobs feel secure, we think we can handle anything, but in the words of the late Rich Mullins, “We are not as strong as we think we are.”

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