6 Bible Verses For When Life Gets Hard

This week I’ve had some really interesting conversations, and I’ve been reminded how much I love when people trust me enough to share what’s really going on in their lives. I’m grateful to be a listening ear, to offer wisdom when it’s asked for, and most importantly, to pray with and for people through whatever season they may be walking through.

And honestly, it seems like the theme this week has been this: everyone is fighting a battle that we can’t always see from the outside looking in. It has been a really good reminder for me to show people a little more grace and a lot more patience. You truly never know what someone is carrying.

It’s such a simple truth, but it’s one I think we forget constantly. We see a curt reply, a canceled plan, a distracted friend, a coworker who snapped when normally they wouldn’t, and our first instinct is to take it personally. We build a whole narrative around one moment without ever stopping to consider what that person might be walking through behind the scenes, a diagnosis they haven’t told anyone about, a marriage that’s quietly falling apart, a financial situation keeping them up at night, a child they’re worried sick over. Everyone is fighting something. The question is just whether we’re willing to extend the grace to remember that, even when it’s inconvenient.

How to Show Grace to Someone Carrying a Hidden Battle

Before I get to what helped me personally, I want to sit for a second on that first thought, because I think it deserves more than a passing mention. If everyone really is fighting something we can’t see, that should change how we move through our days with other people.

Practically, that might look like pausing before you respond to someone’s short answer or canceled plans with frustration, and instead asking, “Is everything okay?” It might look like giving the benefit of the doubt to the coworker who seems distracted, the friend who’s been slower to respond to texts, or the family member who snapped at something small. It might mean being the one who checks in a second and third time, even after someone says they’re fine the first time, because sometimes “I’m fine” is just the easiest thing to say when you’re not ready to say more.

Galatians 6:2 tells us to “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” That’s not a suggestion for the extra-spiritual among us. It’s a command for all of us, and it starts with something as simple as remembering that the person in front of you might be fighting a battle you know nothing about.

What Battles Have Taught Me

In my own life, I’ve been through quite a few battles, and looking back, I can usually see how each one refined me, strengthened me, pivoted me, taught me, or matured me in some way. So now, when battles show up, I obviously don’t appreciate them, but I’ve actually learned to welcome them a little more because I know that God will use them. I have seen that often, after the biggest breakdowns comes the biggest breakthrough.

Scripture backs this up over and over. David didn’t become the king who united a nation by staying comfortable in the fields with his father’s sheep, he became that king after facing down a giant, after years of running from Saul in caves and wilderness, after betrayal from people close to him. Job lost nearly everything he had, and yet the book that bears his name ends with him having “more blessing in the second half of his life than in the first” (Job 42:12). Even Paul, who planted churches across the known world, carried what he called a “thorn in the flesh” that God chose not to remove, telling him instead, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). None of these stories skip the battle to get to the blessing. The battle is often the very thing that shapes the blessing into something it couldn’t have been otherwise.

But I think one of the hardest parts about being in a battle is that you don’t get to control the timeline. You can pray. You can seek God. You can do everything you know to do. And sometimes you still have to wait.

I remember last year going through a battle that seemed like it would never end. We were dealing with a property issue that just kept snowballing. What started as one problem turned into what felt like ten different problems, one right after another. Month after month, we were dealing with something new. I remember thinking, are we ever going to get out of this?

Ten months later, and about $50,000 out of our pocket, we finally saw the breakthrough. And I can still remember the feeling when we came out of that season. It was this incredible sense of joy and sweet relief that I don’t think I could have fully appreciated if I hadn’t experienced the months of stress that came before it.

I think that’s sometimes the frustrating part about battles. When you’re in the middle of them, you can’t always see what God is doing on the other side. There’s no progress bar. There’s no percentage counter telling you how much longer until relief comes. You just have to keep showing up, keep praying, keep trusting, one day at a time, without the satisfaction of knowing exactly how close you are to the finish line.

I think about Elijah after his massive victory on Mount Carmel, one of the greatest displays of God’s power in the entire Old Testament, collapsing under a broom tree and telling God he’d had enough, that he wanted to die (1 Kings 19:4). Even after the miracle, the battle wasn’t over. God didn’t rebuke him for his exhaustion. He sent an angel to feed him, let him sleep, fed him again, and then met him gently in the quiet. Sometimes the battle isn’t the dramatic confrontation. Sometimes it’s the exhaustion that follows it, and God meets us there too.

Everyone Is Carrying Something Right Now

Honestly, I think life just feels challenging for a lot of people right now. The cost of everything keeps going up. There is political unrest. Social media and technology are constantly competing for our attention. The pace of life seems to be getting faster and faster. And now we have AI rapidly changing the way we work and live, which can be incredibly helpful in some ways but also brings a lot of uncertainty about what the future is going to look like.

It feels like so many people are carrying something right now. Maybe it’s financial. Maybe it’s relational. Maybe it’s something happening in your family. Maybe it’s your career. Maybe it’s loneliness. Maybe it’s something nobody else knows about.

And maybe you’re sitting here today wondering how much longer you can keep going.

If that’s you, I want you to know something first, before we even get to the promises below: you are not weak for feeling worn out. You are not lacking faith because you’re tired. Even the most faithful people in Scripture hit points of exhaustion, doubt, and wanting to give up. Feeling the weight of a battle doesn’t disqualify you from being someone God is using. It just means you’re human, walking through something genuinely hard.

Six Promises to Cling To

If that’s you, I just want to give you a few reminders to cling to today. 6 Bible Verses for when life gets hard:

1. Jesus is still on the throne. Whatever is happening around you, He has not lost control. (Hebrews 12:2)
2. He is holding it all together. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17) When everything around you feels like it’s falling apart, He is still holding it all together.
3. He is close to you. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18) He isn’t distant from you in your pain. He is close. Invite Him into whatever you are walking through today.
4. You don’t have to be your own strength. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1) You don’t have to be your own source of strength.
5. You are not alone. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) You are not walking through this alone.
6. Peace is available to you. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” And then comes the promise: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6–7)

I’d encourage you to actually pick one of these and write it down somewhere you’ll see it today, your phone’s lock screen, a sticky note on your mirror, the notes app you check first thing in the morning. It’s one thing to read a promise once. It’s another thing to let it interrupt your thoughts throughout the day, especially on the days the battle feels loudest.

Don’t Carry It Alone

And there’s one more thing I would really encourage you to do if you’re walking through a battle right now: don’t carry it alone.

Tell someone. Call a friend. Ask someone to pray with you. Sit across the table from someone you trust and actually tell them what’s going on.

There is something powerful that happens when we bring what we are carrying into the light. The light always shines brighter than the darkness. And when we bring our battles, our shame, our struggles, our fears, and even our sin into the light, they lose some of the power they have over us.

I think isolation is one of the sneakiest tactics used against us in a hard season. It rarely announces itself. It doesn’t show up saying, “I’m here to cut you off from everyone who loves you.” It shows up quietly, as the voice that says, “They have their own problems, don’t bother them.” “Nobody would understand this anyway.” “It’s easier to just handle it myself.” “I don’t want to be a burden.” One excuse at a time, we talk ourselves into carrying alone the very thing we were never meant to carry alone in the first place.

We were never meant to do this life alone. God created us for community. From the very beginning, in Genesis, God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18)  and that wasn’t just about marriage. It was a statement about how we were designed from the start: for connection, for relationship, for people who would walk alongside us rather than watch from a distance.

So if you’re in a battle right now, please hear me when I say this: you don’t have to have it all together. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay. And you don’t have to walk through it by yourself.

Let someone in. Let God in. Keep going. You may not be able to see the breakthrough yet, but that doesn’t mean God isn’t working.

And if you happen to be in a season of strength right now, where your own battles feel a little quieter, look around you. Someone near you is probably fighting something you can’t see. Be the person who offers grace before judgment, patience before frustration, and a listening ear before advice. You might be exactly what someone needs to keep going today.

Whichever side of the battle you’re standing on this week, the one fighting or the one able to help someone else fight, I hope you leave this encouraged to keep showing up. God sees every bit of what you’re carrying, even the parts you haven’t said out loud yet.