There are seasons in almost every life that make absolutely no sense at the time.

We look at our disrupted circumstances and wonder why God would allow such pain, especially when we feel we have been faithful. Sometimes, years later, the fog begins to lift and we see things we could not possibly have seen before.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

God allowed me to walk through several shocking experiences in my teens and early twenties. For years, I couldn’t make sense of them. Eventually, however, I began to see that what looked pointless at the time was shaping something in me that God would use much later.

To make sense of those years, I want to lean especially on the Apostle Paul, along with an eighteenth-century poet named William Cowper, who found remarkable language for describing the hidden work of God.

Paul understood something that took me decades to learn: the details of our affliction matter less than what God is doing through it. He never explained his famous “thorn in the flesh,” because the thorn itself was not the point.

What God was doing through it was.

The Shock That Shaped a Life

Growing up, by all appearances, God removed blessings from my family.

My parents lost land—twenty acres in Mississippi and twenty more in Texas. I still don’t know why. What I do know is that the loss plunged us into years of scarcity.

My mother bought our clothes at garage sales. They didn’t fit. They weren’t in style. And at an age when friendships matter most, I became the kid people avoided.

Some shouted insults. Some simply turned away. Though God gave me a few faithful friends, the overall experience was one of deep rejection.

Anger took root.

Confusion toward God followed.

I remember the moment I crossed a line—when I stopped asking God to change things and began demanding that He do so. I shook my fist in anger. I felt abandoned.

Then adulthood came—marriage, children, career. Those memories faded into the background.

But they never resolved.

I had survived the experience.

I still didn’t understand it.

Paul Asked for the Pain to Go Away

Years later, Paul’s experience in 2 Corinthians 12 began to give me a way of thinking about my own.

Paul had done nothing wrong. He had been faithful to God’s calling. Yet he was given a persistent “thorn in the flesh.” Whatever its precise nature, it was painful enough that Paul pleaded with God three times to remove it.

That is worth noticing.

Paul’s first response to pain was not to celebrate it. He asked God to take it away.

Sometimes Christians can make suffering harder for one another by assuming that mature faith should immediately welcome whatever God sends.

Paul didn’t.

He asked for relief.

And God said no.

But God did not merely leave Paul with a thorn. He gave him something else:

an explanation.

The thorn had been given “to keep me from exalting myself.” And then came God’s word:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Suddenly Paul could see something he had not seen before.

He had been looking at the pain.

God had been looking at Paul’s future.

That distinction is enormous.

While we are looking around for understanding, God is looking ahead.

Paul saw a thorn that needed to be removed. God saw a danger that needed to be prevented and a servant whose weakness would become the stage on which divine power could be displayed.

The thorn wasn’t meaningless.

It was doing something.

When God Is Looking Ahead

As a boy, I was doing what Paul initially did—looking at my circumstances and feeling completely confused.

But unlike Paul, I became angry.

My family’s period of scarcity began immediately after I had committed my life fully to Christ. It felt almost timed. I couldn’t comprehend why obedience was being met with suffering and rejection.

What I could not see from my limited vantage point was that God was looking at my future.

Looking back, I now realize that had my family remained financially secure, I easily might have grown into a proud, smug, self-sufficient man—someone entirely unable to sympathize with those who are hurting.

While I was bitterly complaining about my circumstances, God was quietly shaping a courthouse chaplain.

Every day now, working in the Family Law Center, I meet people whose lives are blowing apart. They are walking through adult versions of some of what I experienced as a child. Often they tell me they have done nothing to deserve what has happened, and because of my own past, I understand that feeling to my core.

I can now see purposes in some of what happened to me that I could not see then.

But we need to be careful here.

My experience does not mean that every suffering person will eventually be able to look backward and say, “Now I know exactly why God did that.”

Sometimes God gives us an explanation, as He did Paul.

Sometimes years of distance allow us to recognize at least part of what He was accomplishing.

And sometimes the reason remains buried.

What then?

The Unfathomable Mine

William Cowper understood that question.

Cowper—pronounced “Cooper”—wrote the familiar hymn “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” His life also included profound suffering, and he found memorable language for God’s hidden activity in another hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.”

He begins:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Cowper doesn’t picture God standing safely outside the storm.

God is in it.

But His presence doesn’t mean we understand what He is doing there.

That is what makes the storm mysterious.

Cowper develops the idea further:

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

The imagery resonates strongly with Job 28, where human beings descend into the earth, cut shafts through rock, expose hidden things, and retrieve treasures buried in darkness.

Human beings are remarkably good at mining the earth.

But Job asks a far more difficult question:

“But where can wisdom be found?”

We can dig into the earth and find treasure.

We cannot dig into God and extract an explanation.

There are depths we cannot reach.

That changes the question.

When pain refuses to explain itself, the question can no longer merely be:

“Why is this happening?”

Eventually we have to ask:

“How do I live faithfully when I don’t know why this is happening?”

Job 28 gives us an answer.

After an entire chapter about wisdom that human beings cannot discover for themselves, the chapter ends:

“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding.”

That is profound.

When we cannot find the reason, we can still find the posture.

We may not know what God is doing.

We can still know what faithfulness looks like while He is doing it.

What Do We Do While We Wait?

Paul gives us one answer.

Ask.

Paul asked three times for the thorn to be removed. There is nothing unspiritual about asking God to end our pain. We don’t have to pretend we enjoy suffering in order to trust Him.

But Paul’s experience also teaches us something else:

Leave room for God to answer a different question from the one we are asking.

Paul asked:

Will You remove this?

God answered, in effect:

Let Me tell you what I am doing through it.

And that revelation changed Paul’s interpretation of his pain.

Removal gave way to revelation.

Revelation produced reinterpretation.

And reinterpretation eventually enabled Paul to say something astonishing:

“Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

But Job protects us from turning Paul’s experience into a formula.

God may not tell us why.

If He does, receive the explanation.

If He doesn’t, live faithfully on what He has revealed while entrusting to Him what He has concealed.

That may be one of the hardest disciplines of faith.

We naturally want enough information to make God’s actions reasonable to us.

Sometimes He gives it.

Sometimes He asks us to trust His wisdom before we can trace His reasoning.

The Cloud of Mercy

Cowper captures this beautifully later in the hymn:

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

That doesn’t mean pain isn’t painful.

A cloud can be dark precisely because it is carrying something.

And that may be one of the hardest truths to accept when suffering makes no sense: what looks empty of meaning to us may be carrying purposes we cannot yet see.

Paul’s thorn looked like weakness.

God was preparing power.

My childhood looked like rejection and scarcity.

Years later, I could see that at least part of what was being formed was compassion.

The cloud had been carrying something.

But we should resist the temptation to tell every suffering person exactly what their cloud is carrying. We don’t know.

Sometimes even the person suffering doesn’t know.

That is why Cowper’s word mysterious matters.

When the Explanation Never Comes

There is a temptation at this point to make a promise Scripture doesn’t make:

Hang on long enough, and someday God will explain everything that happened to you.

Perhaps He will.

Perhaps, like Paul, you will eventually understand something you couldn’t see before.

Perhaps, like me, decades will pass before pieces begin fitting together.

But some questions may remain unanswered in this life.

And faith must be able to live there too.

Job never receives the kind of explanation we might expect. Instead, he encounters God.

That is an important distinction.

Sometimes God gives us an answer. Sometimes He gives us Himself.

And when the explanation remains buried in the unfathomable mine, God Himself must be enough.

We ask for removal.

We remain open to revelation.

We reinterpret our pain when God gives us light.

And when He doesn’t, we continue to walk in what we already know about Him.

We don’t call evil good.

We don’t pretend pain doesn’t hurt.

We don’t manufacture explanations God hasn’t given us.

And we don’t assume that because we cannot see what God is doing, God isn’t doing anything.

What the Thorn Taught Paul

Paul eventually reached a place he could never have reached when he was simply asking for removal.

He learned that God’s grace was sufficient.

He learned that divine power could operate through human weakness.

And he learned that the thing he most desperately wanted removed could become the very place where Christ’s power rested upon him.

That is why Paul’s story doesn’t end merely with tolerating the thorn.

It ends with a radically different interpretation of it.

The thorn remained.

But its meaning had changed.

That may be one of the deepest works God ever accomplishes in suffering.

Sometimes He changes the circumstance.

Sometimes He explains the circumstance.

Sometimes He changes us while the circumstance remains.

Living With Mystery

So what do we do when pain comes and makes absolutely no sense?

Ask for relief. Paul did.

Listen for what God may be teaching you through it. Paul did that too.

Receive whatever understanding God gives you without pretending to possess understanding He hasn’t given.

And when the reason remains buried, do what Job 28 teaches us:

Fear God. Turn from evil. Keep walking.

Because the fact that God’s purposes are hidden does not mean they are absent.

The mine may be unfathomable.

But it is not empty.

Cowper’s “bright designs” may lie beyond our ability to excavate. Paul’s thorn may remain. The storm may continue longer than we ever imagined.

But we know something Paul did not know when he first begged God for relief:

Pain we cannot explain can still be pain God can use.

And sometimes, many years later, we may look backward and discover that while we were desperately trying to understand what God was doing around us,

God had been quietly doing something within us all along.

Take One Truth With You

If you could choose one truth in this article to carry with you the next time you find yourself under a “frowning providence,” which one would you most want to take, and why?

There is a worship song that came out some time ago that says that Jesus changes everything. But let’s be honest. Sometimes God leaves our circumstances exactly as they are. Things stay the same, week after week, and even year after year. If nothing changes in spite of your best intentions, you may be in a wilderness.

But here’s the important thing to know about a wilderness: God has put you there for a reason, and more, He has kept you there for a reason. But many times, our first instinct is to get out—the sooner the better. But if we expand our attention past the point of our immediate desire for relief, we may discover something far more valuable: what God intends to accomplish while we’re there.

Psalm 95 recounts part of Israel’s history, and it offers a sobering insight. In verses 9–10 of that psalm, God says of Israel, “they tried Me, though they had seen My work . . . They are a people who err in their heart, and they do not know My ways.” So, even though they had seen His work, they did not understand His ways.

Think about it: If we must walk through a wilderness anyway, wouldn’t it be better to understand what God may be wanting to accomplish there—to understand His ways—and avoid Israel’s mistake?

God Has an Eye For . . .

Deuteronomy 8:2–3 gives us some insight into God’s wilderness design: “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness . . . , that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart . . . . He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, . . . that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”

There is a lot in this passage that tells us about God’s ways, about His reason for leading us into the wilderness. In particular, we will notice at least three purposes behind Israel’s wilderness experience that will give us insight into how God works in difficult seasons.

Humility

One of God’s purposes was to humble His people. The wilderness stripped away their familiar sources of security and exposed their dependence on Him. At this point in history, Egypt was a land of abundant resources. Egyptologists tell us that Egypt was a land of extraordinary agricultural resources, sustained by the annual flooding of the Nile. People lived in a world of established resources. Food, water, and healthcare were freely available to everyone—even slaves.

Once Israel transitioned from slavery through a glorious deliverance into the wilderness, they suddenly found themselves in a completely different world—one in which they had to depend on God for literally everything.

Our wilderness experiences often have the same effect on us. A job loss, a sudden illness, a drastic change in our stock portfolio can instantly change our world. When circumstances remind us of our limitations, we can either resist the lesson or determine to humble ourselves before God, acknowledging our weaknesses, our sins, and our deep need for Him.

The wilderness can become a place where we stop relying on ourselves and humbly learn to depend more fully on God.

Testing

God also led Israel through the wilderness to test them, revealing what was in their hearts. Deprivation was part of that testing. God allowed His people to experience hunger, exposing how they would respond when their needs were not immediately met. God says in the passage above that He let His people experience hunger. So it was no accident. This was intentional. God was testing His people in the wilderness, revealing what was in their hearts (compare 2 Chronicles 32:31).

Sometimes we pass the test, and sometimes we fail. But even when we fail, if we recognize what is in our hearts, this leads to brokenness and humility which, as we just mentioned, is the first of God’s main purposes for the wilderness experience. So either way, God’s purposes can be served in the testing process.

The important thing in a time of testing is to respond to what God shows us about our hearts.

Teaching

Interestingly, God didn’t merely allow Israel to become hungry. He met their need in a miraculous, remarkable way, raining food for them from heaven. Why? Because God had a deeper purpose in mind: To teach them.

But the lesson went beyond learning that God was their provider. Moses explained that God allowed them to hunger and then fed them with manna “that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Consider this: Manna would not have fallen if God had not commanded it to. Ultimately, it was not the manna itself that sustained God’s people in the wilderness, but the Word of God that caused it to fall.

And here’s the remarkable thing: They had to experience hunger to learn that lesson. There are lessons we simply cannot learn in our normal experience. Some truths only become clear through experiences we never would have chosen.

So while we’re in the wilderness, we should be asking not only, “Lord, when will this end?” but, “Lord, what do You want to teach me while I’m here?”

A Divine Warning

While God may use the wilderness to test us, there is something we must be careful not to do: test Him!

What does it mean to test God? It is not simply asking questions or crying out to Him in distress. Rather, it is putting His faithfulness on trial, demanding that He prove Himself according to our expectations.

Consider Israel’s response when they became thirsty in the wilderness. After witnessing God’s extraordinary deliverance from Egypt, they tested Him by asking, “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7).

Think about that! God had delivered them from Pharaoh’s army, parted the sea, and led them safely through. Yet their immediate need became the basis for questioning whether He was even with them.

They allowed their present circumstances to eclipse the evidence of God’s past faithfulness.

We face the same danger. When our wilderness becomes prolonged or painful, we may begin judging God’s faithfulness by whether He changes our circumstances. We willfully ignore His works and drill down on our present need in an attitude of self-absorbed doubt. This is what the wilderness can do to us if we let it.

Here is a key distinction to make: There is a crucial difference between honestly bringing our situation and its attendant pain before God, and demanding that He prove Himself on our terms.
So, while God often tests our faith in the wilderness, we must not put His faithfulness on trial.

Our Task: To Focus on . . .

So, how do we avoid Israel’s mistake? What can we do when our circumstances remain unchanged and we are tempted to question God’s faithfulness?

Scripture directs our attention in three directions: backward, inward, and forward.

Past Victories

We get some direction from Psalm 106:7. This verse ties Israel’s wilderness rebellion directly to the fact that “they did not remember Your abundant kindnesses.” Reframing this truth in a positive way, when we are in the middle of a wilderness experience and we deliberately focus on the times when He did step into a previous crisis, this changes our trajectory. But we must consciously choose to do this, or we will default to our rebellious thought patterns.

Here’s a practical exercise: If you’re in a wilderness now, do yourself a favor. Break away from this article and, for five minutes, make a list of all the times you have seen God show up—when He provided for you, guided you, sustained you, or brought you through circumstances you couldn’t resolve yourself. Then confess to Him that you believe you will see His faithfulness displayed once again. When we deliberately remember His past faithfulness, it strengthens our courage and stirs our gratitude toward Him. And a grateful heart is pleasing to God (Psalm 50:23).

Remembering yesterday’s faithfulness can strengthen today’s faith.

Present Consolations

But we don’t have to live entirely on memories. One of my favorite Old Testament verses is Psalm 94:19, which says, “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.” Notice that he is not denying the reality of his anxious thoughts. Even so, something else had captured his attention: God’s consolations.

Even in the wilderness, God provides reminders of His care. They may come through Scripture, the encouragement of a friend, an unexpected provision, or a fresh awareness of His presence. The challenge is that our difficulties can become so consuming that we overlook these gifts.

When we deliberately shift our thoughts from our anxious thoughts to the many consolations God has given us, it is amazing how quickly our anxieties shrink down to size.

So ask yourself: Where am I seeing God’s kindness today, even though my larger circumstances haven’t changed?

Future Hope

There is one more direction we need to place our focus on—forward.

The wilderness is not the whole story. Scripture repeatedly directs God’s people toward what lies beyond their present suffering. Two promises deserve our attention.

The Promise of Reward

Thankfully, Scriptre assures us that there is a reward for those who endure well. James 1:12 speaks directly to the matter of testing: “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

Notice that James connects perseverance under trial with God’s promised reward. The promise is as real as the testing. Faithful endurance matters to God, and He does not overlook it.

That doesn’t mean every test will end in material prosperity or an immediate change in circumstances. Some wilderness experiences may leave lasting scars, and some rewards await us beyond this life. But Scripture assures us that our perseverance is never wasted.

God doesn’t merely call us to endure testing. He promises to reward those who persevere in faith.

The Anticipation of Rest

In Psalm 95:11, we learn that, because of Israel’s choice to test God and not believe in Him, He made it clear that they would not enter into His rest. But again, if we flip that statement around, we discover a very encouraging truth: God’s intention is to lead us through the wilderness in order to give us a place of rest—often within this life, but ultimately in the life to come.

In line with this, Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us be diligent to enter that rest.” This calls for intentionality on our part. If we really believe that there is a reward and a rest for us, our hope will engender courage in our hearts and will advance our faith, which will renew our resolve to faithfully continue our trek through the wilderness to the end.

And there is an end. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the wilderness is permanent. It is not. Every wilderness has a beginning, and every wilderness has an end, whether in this life or the next. Believe it—“There remains a rest for the people of God!” (Hebrews 4:9)

Our wilderness journey will not last forever. There is rest ahead!

God’s Wilderness Design

So, if you are currently in a wilderness, don’t assume that nothing is happening simply because nothing is changing. Don’t waste your experience there simply wishing it were over. There is more to your experience that simply reaching the exit. In reality, God is looking for specific things to happen there. God’s ways may be hidden from you, but that doesn’t mean His purposes are absent. God may be accomplishing something in you that could not be accomplished any other way.

If nothing else, you can become more useful for His Kingdom on the other side. I don’t pretend to know why, but it has been my observation that God often advances His Kingdom much more effectively with those who have been through the discipline of the wilderness. They emerge with greater humility, deeper dependence on Him, and a capacity to minister to others that they did not possess before. And being more useful to Him aligns us with something worth anticipating: hearing our Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord!” (Matthew 25:21).

Reward indeed! And then rest—true rest!

Your Comments Will Encourage Someone Else!

What is one thing you learned in your wilderness experience that you could not have learned anywhere else?

Many people deal with habits or addictions that they can’t seem to shake. This is often a source of frustration for Christians who know that they should be living at a different level. For those who find themselves there, the Bible does offer a strategy, but that strategy begins with a particular set of commands. Unfortunately, a lot of believers are not aware of these commands, and if we are, we’re not sure what to do with them.

A Division of Tasks

As I study Scripture, I notice a clear distinction between what God promises to do and what He commands us to do. God has assigned responsibilities to His people, and we cannot neglect those responsibilities while expecting Him to do everything for us.

I have heard people say, “You don’t need to do anything; God has already done everything for you.” My response is simple: If that is true, why are there so many imperatives in the New Testament?

God certainly works within us, giving us both the desire and the ability to obey Him (Philippians 2:12–13). While His work in us makes our obedience possible, that does not absolve us of our responsibility to act.

This brings us to a particular set of commands that many believers have overlooked. The Bible describes sanctification as God’s work of making His people holy. It is His will for us (1 Thessalonians 4:3), but we are not passive spectators in the process. We have an essential role to play.

This is what I call responsible discipleship: actively obeying the commands God has given us, while relying on His power to accomplish what we cannot accomplish on our own.

A Specific Type of Command

The commands I have in mind involve putting off certain vices and putting on corresponding virtues. Paul frequently uses the imagery of removing one garment and putting on another.

For example, Ephesians 4:31 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” Similarly, Hebrews 12:1 instructs us to “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us.”

Notice what these passages require. We are not merely told to regret our sins or ask God to remove them. We are commanded to take action.

Now consider the corresponding commands to put something on:

• “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Romans 13:14).

• “Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12).

• “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).

These commands call for deliberate obedience. The garment imagery is particularly instructive. We do not merely hope that an old garment will somehow disappear. We take it off and deliberately put on something different.

There are moments when we must decisively reject our old patterns and embrace new ones.

Consider Paul’s instructions concerning the armor of God. We often hear that Christians must put on the full armor every day. But Scripture never commands this.

In Ephesians 6:11–14, Paul commands believers to put on the armor to stand against the devil’s schemes and resist “in the evil day.” His emphasis is on being equipped and standing firm when we come under attack, not on a daily ritual of putting the armor on again.

Certainly, reminding ourselves of God’s provision each morning can be beneficial. But we must not turn a helpful practice into a biblical command.

The central lesson is clear: God has given us commands that require intentional, decisive obedience. We must actually do what He tells us to do.

Our Present Condition

The need for decisive obedience becomes painfully clear when we consider the struggles of believers who genuinely want to honor God. Barna Research reveals that 54% of practicing Christians acknowledge viewing pornography, with 22% doing so weekly or daily.

But the problem extends far beyond our screens. An analysis of the General Social Survey found that 13% of Christians who attend church weekly and have been married reported having been sexually unfaithful during marriage.

And the problem is not limited to sexual sin. According to the American Bible Society’s 2026 research, 24% of practicing Christians acknowledge continuing to think badly of people who have mistreated them. Even among committed believers, resentment can be difficult to release. We are struggling with sexual temptation, marital unfaithfulness, bitterness, and unforgiveness. And these are only a few examples!

But here is something particularly revealing. Lifeway Research found that 80% of Protestant churchgoers say they readily confess their sins to God when convicted.

Think about that. Overall, we are not indifferent to sin. We recognize it. We confess it. We want to change. Yet many of us continue struggling with the same patterns year after year.

Could it be that the problem is not simply that we don’t want to obey God, but that we don’t fully understand how to obey Him?

Perhaps we have been asking Him to remove what He has commanded us to put away.

Fleshing This Command Out

So, what does obedience to these commands actually look like?

In Ephesians 4:22–24, Paul instructs believers to “put off your old self” and “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” I suggest setting aside a specific time to act on these commands. You might begin by praying:

“In the name of Jesus, I put off the works of the flesh. I renounce the sinful patterns that have held me captive. I am done making provision for them.”

Get specific. Name the anger, bitterness, lust, dishonesty, or jealousy you are putting away.

But here is something we dare not overlook: Putting off is only half the command!

We confess our sins, renounce them, and ask God to remove them. But what about what He has commanded us to put on? Perhaps we have struggled to experience consistent victory because we have focused on rejecting the negative without embracing the positive!

So don’t stop with putting off. Continue:

“In the name of Jesus, I put on the Lord Jesus Christ. I put on the new self. In place of anger, I put on patience. In place of bitterness, forgiveness. In place of lust, purity and self-control.”

We are deliberately replacing vices with corresponding virtues, not merely abandoning old habits. These are not magic words, nor does Scripture prescribe a particular formula. They simply express a decisive act of obedience.

We are doing what God has commanded us to do—all of it.

But remember, this is not merely an exercise in willpower. As Paul explains in Romans 8:13, we put sinful practices to death by the Spirit. Our responsibility is to obey; His power enables our obedience.

Handling Setbacks

Here is where many of us get stuck. We genuinely want to obey God. We confess our sins, renounce them, and resolve to do better. But when temptation returns, we find ourselves fighting the same battles all over again.

What are we missing? Perhaps it isn’t a lack of sincerity or determination. Perhaps we simply haven’t understood what God commands us to do when temptation returns. Suppose we have deliberately put off anger and put on patience. But tomorrow someone provokes us, and that familiar anger begins to rise. Was our earlier obedience for nothing? Must we start all over again? No! There is another crucial part of the biblical strategy.

Paul commands us in Romans 6:11: “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

The word translated consider is an accounting term. Accountants are accustomed to placing figures in distinct categories—assets in one column, liabilities in another. Paul is exhorting us to do something similar: Put sin in the “dead” column and our new life in Christ in the “alive” column. This is how we are to reckon our identity in Christ.

But here is something crucial: In the Greek, Paul uses a present imperative, calling us to “consider” this truth continually!

Notice the distinction. Putting off the old and putting on the new involve decisive acts of obedience. But considering ourselves dead to sin is not something we do merely on one significant occasion. It is something we must keep doing.

Why? Because temptation keeps returning!

When anger rises again, we don’t need to assume that our earlier obedience was meaningless or that we must start the entire process over. Instead, we remind ourselves:

“I am dead to that. I have put it off. That is no longer who I am. I belong to Christ, and I have put on the new self.”

Here is the strategy:

• We decisively put off the old and put on the new.

• When temptation returns, we continually reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God.

We are not trying to create a new identity each time temptation strikes. We are rehearsing the identity Christ has already given us.

Rehearsing our identity is key to standing firm.

Reaching Out

What if, after putting these principles into practice, we still struggle? Don’t give up! Reach out to a trusted fellow believer and ask them to stand with you in prayer.

But let’s be specific about what we’re asking. Rather than simply saying, “Pray for me,” we might say, “Pray that I will remember who I am in Christ and stand firm.” That is victory: Instead of repeatedly falling to temptation, we are standing firm!

There is another dimension to this that we dare not overlook. In Colossians 3, after commanding believers to put away sinful practices and put on godly virtues, Paul instructs them to teach and admonish one another (v. 16). Evidently, God intends for believers to help one another grow in holiness. Sometimes we need someone who will encourage us, remind us of biblical truth, or lovingly confront us when we begin drifting back into old patterns.

We see another aspect of community life where James exhorts believers to confess their sins to one another and pray for one another (James 5:16). Viewing these passages together, it appears that teaching and admonishing, combined with confession and prayer in response, can provide powerful support in overcoming habitual sin. In many cases, victories that have long eluded us may become attainable when biblical community functions as designed.

That is God’s ultimate goal for us—to make us holy, together!

The Consequence

Consider what could happen if more believers began practicing this biblical strategy. How many longstanding struggles might finally begin to lose their grip? Without a doubt, counseling, medication, and support groups all have their place. We cannot assume that seeking these means of help indicates spiritual failure. However, we cannot neglect the commands we have been given for our own benefit.

When we act on what God has directed us to do, we will likely discover that some of the victories we have long sought begin with an act of obedience we have long overlooked, or have never fully understood.

A Final Exhortation

If these principles are new to you, I encourage you to revisit this article until they become familiar. But don’t stop with understanding them. Put them into practice!

Identify the sinful patterns you need to put away. Deliberately put on the corresponding virtues. Then, whenever temptation returns, remind yourself of who you are in Christ and stand firm.

Remember, even though we have emphasized what we are to do in this article, we are not attempting this in our own strength. The Holy Spirit empowers us to do what God commands.

And imagine the consequences! Lives transformed. Relationships restored. Believers finally experiencing victories that have eluded them for years.

And that is priceless.

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Absalom. Anyone who mentions the name of this Old Testament anti-hero recalls a man who was restless, torn from within. Worse, his inward battles projected outward. But when we read the full story of Absalom in 2 Samuel 13–18, we learn that something happened earlier in his life that set this cause-and-effect in motion. His half-brother had violated his full sister, and a dragon was birthed in Absalom’s soul. To feed the dragon, Absalom devised a plot and killed his half-brother. As a result, his father, King David, cut him off from his presence. Despite a surface reconciliation, the dragon was still alive, and Absalom staged a revolt against his father, and the most dramatic account of civil war found in the Bible unfolded. War within Absalom’s soul spread far and wide. In short, Absalom was a man who was striving, meaning there was strife in his heart that drove him to do things that were harmful to himself and to many others.

In this article, the term “striving” refers to a specific type of heart condition. We often think of striving in a positive way—striving to achieve, striving to improve, striving even to do good for others. However, the word originally comes from the root word “strife,” which derives from the Anglo-French word estri, of Germanic origin, which is similar to the Dutch word striden, to fight. It connotes a tendency toward contention and quarreling. So, to be clear, this article will not use the term “striving” in any positive sense, but will always refer to it in its classic, negative meaning.

Taken this way, striving is deadly. But it is rarely ever addressed by the church today, even though the Bible mentions it often. It’s time to take a look at the subject, and to take an honest look at ourselves. Think about the strivers you know. People who fall into this category are never truly happy. They are either always beating themselves up or beating other people up. The more intense the pain, or the more they are reminded of it, the more they strive.

How This Happens

Strivers are not born that way. Like Absalom, something happened to them earlier, so now they are out to resolve whatever had gone wrong. Every relationship, every situation is affected by this “something.”

You can easily identify strivers because they always have something to prove to themselves or to others or both. They are trying to right a previous wrong. They are out to acquire something or to achieve something or to balance something out by overcompensating.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with applying ourselves and accomplishing great things, this is different. More than productivity is at stake here. Strivers are usually very gifted people who leave a path of destruction alongside their accomplishments.

Strivers and the Bible

So, what does the Bible have to say about striving? First, Proverbs 28:25 identifies pride as the source of strife. Pride indeed stands behind a striving soul, but it is a wounded pride that drives it. Further, the word “striving” is mentioned 10 times in the short book of Ecclesiastes. In fact, two of the most common words in the book are “vanity” and “striving,” and that is the point—strivers are engaging in a vain enterprise. They will never fix what is broken; they will never be content, no matter how much they “succeed.”

The New Testament, for its part, focuses more on the context of strife, placing it in a list of such expressions as jealousy, disputes, slanders, gossip, disturbances (2 Corinthians 12:20), envy, abusive language, evil suspicions (1 Timothy 6:4), enmities, dissensions, and factions (Galatians 5:20). Chaos accompanies strivers wherever they go. Conflict is commonplace. Why? Because my dragon doesn’t like your dragon and vice-versa. Strivers continually over-exert themselves. They are always wanting to achieve more, work later, get up earlier because, after all, they have things to prove. But notice whether they are happy. Strivers are never happy.

Breaking Free

So, how do we find a way out? What is the pathway out for those who are torn by a striving heart?

For that, consider Joseph. If anybody had reason to spend the rest of his life saying, “I’ll show them,” it was Joseph. His brothers hated him, stripped him of his robe, threw him into a pit, and sold him into slavery. In Egypt, he served faithfully only to be falsely accused and thrown into prison, where he was eventually forgotten by someone he had helped while still there. Joseph had accumulated enough wounds to feed a dragon for a lifetime.

Then Pharaoh suddenly recognizes and elevates Joseph. Yet strangely, Joseph’s success does not appear to be a source for revenge for him. As the narrative progresses, we begin to recognize that the old wound is no longer driving the man.

The first indication comes when Joseph names his two sons. He names the first Manasseh—which means to cause to forget—explaining, “God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” He names the second Ephraim because “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Genesis 41:51–52).

The order is striking:
Manasseh—God has made me forget.
Ephraim—God has made me fruitful.

Obviously, Joseph did not literally forget what happened to him. Years later, he remembers it well enough to talk about it. Nor does he minimize what happened. In Genesis 50:20, he tells his brothers plainly, “You meant evil against me.” Evil is still evil. Forgetfulness does not require us to rename it.

Something else has happened. The wound remains part of Joseph’s story without remaining the engine of his life. He remembers the wound without continuing to live out of the wound.

Biblical forgetfulness is not losing the memory.
It is losing the compulsion to keep answering it.

This is enormously important for a striver. The striver keeps the old injury alive because, consciously or unconsciously, he needs it as fuel: I’ll show them. I’ll prove they were wrong. I’ll make up for what I lost. I’ll become successful enough that what happened to me won’t matter anymore.

Joseph does something radically different. He receives from God the ability to let the past be past.

And notice what Joseph associates with that forgetfulness. He does not name a palace Manasseh. He does not point to his position beside Pharaoh and say, “Now I can forget.” The name belongs to a little boy.

Joseph had received staggering external blessings—authority, wealth, status, influence, vindication of his abilities. But when he explains Manasseh, his attention has been captured by something far more personal. God has placed a blessing in his life that occupies the foreground while the old injuries begin receding into the background.

Joseph memorialized the blessing rather than memorializing the wound.

Absalom did almost the reverse. Something terrible had happened to his sister, and he carried that wrong forward. The wound became part of the unresolved world within him, and eventually it began driving what he did. Joseph had every reason to do the same. But the name Manasseh continually announced what God had done for Joseph, rather than what others had done to Joseph.

The power of the dragon depends on the place we give him in our hearts and in our memory.

If the front screen of our minds continually displays what they did to me, what I lost, how unfair it was, what I should have received, what I still need to prove, we give the dragon enormous room to grow.

Joseph puts something else on the front screen: Look what God has given me.

Most of us are not going to become second-in-command of Egypt. But we can recognize the gifts God has already placed around us—a spouse, a child, a grandchild, a friend, meaningful work, a church community, provision, an opportunity to serve, or simply the ordinary goodness of today.

Then comes Ephraim: “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

Notice those last words. Egypt has not suddenly become the land where nothing bad ever happened. Joseph still calls it “the land of my affliction.” He has not rewritten his past. Instead, God has changed his relationship to it.

Joseph does not have to make his brothers suffer. He does not have to prove himself to his father. He cannot recover his stolen adolescence. He cannot get those years in prison back. But he can become fruitful here. Joseph discovered something strivers desperately need to learn:

Fruitfulness grows more freely when we are no longer using the present to settle past accounts.

Later, when Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, we discover something else that has happened inside him. He can say both, “You sold me here,” and “God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5). By Genesis 50:20, his interpretation has become even clearer: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

Joseph has reinterpreted his past under the providence of God. What his brothers did to him no longer gets to define what his life means.

Here, then, is a pathway out of striving:

· Name the wound.

· Recognize what you have been trying to prove or repair.

· Reinterpret the wound within God’s larger story.

· Release the need to make the past come out differently.

· Pursue fruitfulness rather than vindication.

In short, Joseph stopped trying to vindicate the past and became fruitful in the present.

The opposite of striving, then, is not passivity. Joseph was anything but passive. He worked, planned, administered, prepared Egypt for famine, and used his gifts extraordinarily well. The difference was that he no longer needed his accomplishments to repair yesterday.

You do not have to repair the past by succeeding in the present. You can receive the present as a gift from God instead.

One Final Word

Finally, I offer a word of exhortation: Learn contentment. Striving is a learned disposition, and so is contentment. Learn to accept others even when you don’t understand them. Learn to live with situations that are less than ideal. Balance your initiative with a reasoned patience; pace yourself; stop trying to do more than you are designed to do. Learn to lose gracefully; no one wins every time.

Every striver eventually reaches a crossroads: keep feeding the dragon or finally silence it. And the church’s great hymns have long named the moment when the dragon dies — when fears are stilled and strivings cease. Not because the past is rewritten, but because the wound is reinterpreted and God’s present gifts are allowed to become more prominent than yesterday’s injuries.

Learn to let God’s present gifts outweigh yesterday’s injuries. Learn Joseph’s order — forgetfulness before fruitfulness. And learn to trust the God who can turn affliction into abundance.

When fears are stilled and strivings cease, the past loses its power.

And true peace finally takes its place.
Your Story Counts

I’ve shared how I found a way to slay the dragon. What has helped you move from striving toward becoming a person of peace? I’d love to hear what you’ve learned along the way.