Episode 340
Trusting God in Adversity
"When faced with adversity, our only job is to continue to trust God and continue to pray." - Wesleyne
Word of the Day:
"Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God just as he had done before."- Daniel 6:10
In the face of adversity, Wesleyne draws parallels between Daniel's experiences and our own struggles with faith and obedience. Using Daniel's commitment to prayer in the face of a royal decree as a central example, Wesleyne illustrates the challenges we encounter when the world pushes us away from God's commands. Despite being commanded not to pray to any god other than the king, Daniel continued his prayers openly and boldly, showing his unwavering trust in God. Wesleyne highlights how Daniel's commitment and trust in God led to his miraculous deliverance from the lion's den, emphasizing that God is always faithful to those who trust Him.
Takeaways:
- Even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, God remains faithful and capable of delivering us from any situation.
- Instead of succumbing to doubt and fear, we should reject negative emotions and trust in God's promises.
- Surrendering control to God allows Him to work in our lives more effectively. It involves trusting God completely and relinquishing our own desires and plans.
- Trusting God means letting go of worries and anxieties, knowing that He will take care of us. Continuously giving our burdens to Him allows us to experience His peace and provision.
Chapters:
- 00:00- Facing Defeat
- 00:58- God's Faithfulness
- 03:18- Surrendering to God
- 05:11- Trusting and Releasing
What questions are you struggling to answer? Wesleyne would love to answer these questions for you personally. Send any questions or prayer requests to hello@askwesleyne.com
Follow Wesleyne on Instagram @wesleynewhittaker
Transcript
Do you trust God even when it's hard? Do you do the things that God has commanded you to do? Even when the world, even when those around you tell you not to do it, they tell you to skip that prayer time. Just skip church. you're too holy, you're too churchy. Focus on this person instead of God. Do this, not that.
Have you ever been faced with that? And it may not be as extreme as fully turning away from God. It could simply be every single Wednesday evening when you have purpose in your heart and God has told you that you should attend a mid -week Bible study and your boss.
ask you to work late every single Wednesday night so you are unable to attend. Or maybe your spouse doesn't like the church that you're attending. So they decide that they're not going to church with you. And since they're not going to church with you and you know the Bible says that a husband and wife, they have a covenant, they are united as one.
until you want to support your spouse so you stop attending services also.
Wesleyne (:the world will give us reasons to not do what God has purposed in our heart to do. And I gave some specific examples about attending church, but it could be you not reading your Bible every single morning because the night before you're having such big arguments with someone in your life and so you're exhausted.
and that prevents you from reading the Bible.
What we see in Daniel 6 is verse 10. It says, now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God just as he had done before. So in the previous verses, the king made a decree that,
you could pray to no other God other than me. And if you prayed, then you would be thrown in the lion's den. Then you said, okay, great. Well, I'm gonna keep doing what I was doing and I'm gonna do it boldly. I'm not gonna do it in my closet. I'm not gonna do it in hiding. I'm going to do it at the window so everyone can see what I am doing.
And I'm not going to do it once a day or twice a day, three times a day. So when Daniel was faced with adversity, when Daniel was told to not do something, he did it anyways, because he knew the God that he served. He knew the God that he served was a merciful God, a God that he could trust. And even though the repercussions from his actions,
Wesleyne (:were going to be dire, he trusted God. And throughout the rest of Daniel, what we see are men who found Daniel praying, not even the king. So bystanders, people who are outside of your sphere can sometimes turn you in or can sometimes impact you by telling on you, by saying something to you.
or even impact your mind, right? So if you are so diligent about doing something, having a practice that is pleasing to God and somebody sees you doing it and maybe they go and tell your boss, she's taking extra breaks that she's not supposed to take.
What will happen? There will be repercussions. Your boss didn't see you, but there are people and those people who are those people, those people are tools of the enemy. Those people are coming to shake your faith. They're coming to put doubt in your mind. But Daniel was so firm in what he believed and what he knew. He kept.
praying and he prayed and asked God for help. In verse 11, it says, these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. So he didn't say, okay, let me stop praying. I gotta do this in quiet now. I can't be by the window. Let me pretend like I'm not praying. He asked God for help. So when he was hit with adversity, he turned to his source of strength. God, help me.
And the king was like, well, let me see if I can do something to not throw him in the lion's den, because I kind of like Daniel. But the men kept pushing him. They were like, did you not say that you were going to do this? Why does he get special treatment? And so the king, he has an ego. He has to, he feels like he has to do what he has said that he needs to do. And so he threw him in the lion's den.
Wesleyne (:So Daniel who was praying to God was thrown into the lions den, into a pit of destruction, into a place where those men thought that he would be devoured.
Wesleyne (:But what happens while he is in that lion's den, God is protecting him. The king found him alive. He continued to serve God. He continued to pray and ask for protection and ask God for help and God spared his life. He came out of that lion's den unscathed. Not one lion took a nibble, a sniff,
elect anything on him because Daniel did what God told him to do. He purposed in his heart to pray, to trust God, to ask God for his direction and his help. And that is what we are called to do when we are faced with adversity, when we have people that are outside of us that are telling us to do one thing or are telling on us.
and causing us to question if we're doing things right or if we're being pleasing to God. Our only job is to continue to trust God and continue to pray.
