Tag Archives: bad days

March 15, 2019 · 5:43 AM

Bad Days

It’s easy to praise God on our good days, but what about our bad days? When we didn’t get the news we were hoping for, when we didn’t get the job or when God didn’t answer our prayer the way we wanted Him to. Can you still bless the Lord on those days? Too many times we allow our disappointment to choose our response to God on those days. We must learn to not allow our feelings to dictate our relationship with God.

I’ve learned that God knows what He’s doing more than I do. While I don’t like bad days, I know that they produce more fruit in my life than the good days. They deepen my faith like no other times. It never feels good to be disappointed by not getting the things we want, but we must find a way to bless God anyway. If Job, who was as human as we are, could fall down and worship God on his worst day, we can too.

Here are some Bible verses about bad days.

1. GOD ’s a safe-house for the battered, a sanctuary during bad times. The moment you arrive, you relax; you’re never sorry you knocked.

Psalm 9:9-10 MSG

2. Even when bad things happen to the good and godly ones, the Lord will save them and not let them be defeated by what they face.

Psalms 34:19 TPT

3. I am the Lord; there is no other God. I have equipped you for battle, though you don’t even know me, so all the world from east to west will know there is no other God. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the Lord, am the one who does these things.

Isaiah 45:5-7 NLT

4. The Lord takes care of those who obey him, and the land will be theirs forever. They will not suffer when times are bad; they will have enough in time of famine.

Psalm 37:18-19 GNT

5. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Why, GOD bless that man! GOD hasn’t quite walked out on us after all! He still loves us, in bad times as well as good!” Naomi went on, “That man, Ruth, is one of our circle of covenant redeemers, a close relative of ours!”

Ruth 2:20 MSG

Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

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September 4, 2014 · 5:30 AM

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days

I remember when I was in middle school and we had speech competitions. I always thought it was about who could memorize the speech best, but it was really about who could recite them with the best inflections. I remember memorizing “Casey at the Bat” and “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”. Casey struck out and nothing went Alexander’s way. From the moment he got up with gum in his hair until his family had Lima beans for dinner, everything went wrong. At the end of the day, his mom reminded him that everyone has bad days.

She was right, we all have bad days. Sometimes they seem to overshadow any good days that we’ve had. Sometimes it’s just one bad day after another. Before we know it, we can’t remember the last time we saw a ray of sunshine. We begin to lose hope and consider giving up that life will ever get better. Just like seasons, bad times change. They can’t stick around forever. If they begin to feel like it, we need to change what we are doing. People always say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Changing routines, friends, jobs or locations can often get us out of the rut.

When I’ve had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I first turn to Romans 5:3-5. It says, “There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! (MSG)”

We need to continue to shout praises to God on the bad days. We need to recognize that God uses those days and circumstances like sandpaper in our lives. He smooths out the rough edges and develops passionate patience in us that makes us strong. God doesn’t leave us feeling shortchanged it says. Those bad days are getting us prepared to receive blessings into our lives that we can’t contain! The NLT says this hope will not lead us to disappointment. Even when everything else has been a disappointment, we can always trust that what God is doing in us and for us never will. Hang in there, God is doing something great.

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December 3, 2013 · 7:56 AM

Why Are You Running Away?

I was reading in I Kings 17-19 about Elijah the prophet. In one chapter, he prays and God sends a drought that last for years. In another part, God uses ravens to bring him food each day. Then a widow woman gives up her final meal to feed him. She is rewarded with the resurrection of her son when he died and unending flour and oil. Elijah then challenges the prophets of the god Baal to a showdown. After proving that his God was real and Baal wasn’t, he had them killed. He then prayed to end the drought and it rained again. When he got back to town Jezebel threatened to kill him and he ran away.

He went on a 40 day journey to the mountain of God. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and fell asleep. In verse 9 of I Kings 19, God said, “So Elijah, what are you doing here?” His response was that he had been doing everything he could for God, the people of Israel had abandoned God and they wanted to kill him because he was the only prophet left. I don’t think that was the answer God was looking for. Every other time that he had been in trouble, God had met him where he was and provided for him. Why was this time different?

Instead of waiting to hear where God wanted him to go, as had been how things went in previous chapters, Elijah set out on his own to find God. He left where God had him and asked him to go. I didn’t read where God told him to run from Jezebel. He just did it out of human emotion. So when he arrived at the mountain of God, He wanted to know why he was there and not where He had told him to be. Why do any of us leave the place God has us just because things aren’t happening the way we thought the should? Why do we run from difficult circumstances to where we think God is instead of facing them head on in the place we’re called?

That reminds me of Job’s response to his wife when everything bad was happening to him. He was where God had him and lost everything he owned and his children. Soon after that, he lost his health. His wife told him to just curse God and die. Instead of running away from the problems that were going on in his life and cursing God, he asked her a question. In Job 2:10, he said, “We take the good days from God – why not the bad?” We are quick to accept good days from God, but when things stop going our way, we start questioning his judgement or run away. We try to find the place where we know God is hoping to find shelter and rest. We aren’t always prepared for God to ask, “Why are you here?”

God sent Elijah back to Israel with instructions on what to do next. He didn’t let him camp out in that cave until Jezebel died or things blew over. God knows it’s easy to trust him on the good days and when things are going as planned. It’s when they aren’t so good or not going as planned that we really learn what trust is and our faith grows. I’d rather stay where God had me and face difficult times than to have to answer the difficult question of, “Why are you here and not where I had you?” I’d rather stay where He has me and let Him provide during the droughts of life. I want to be thankful for the good days and accepting of the bad.

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