-First: if you are suffering because of your wrongdoing: make this a learning opportunity. Come out a better person. Repent. Psalm 6, Psalm 25, and Psalm 51 are good ones for this.
Develop a Foundation
It is natural for humans to fall back on old ways of living when in the midst of suffering. We resort to old habits, old coping mechanisms, old foundations.
It’s also natural for it to be extremely hard to learn and grow while in the midst of suffering. That’s why we usually don’t process our suffering until we look back at it. (when in a deep depression, I can’t even read scripture).
Grow in your walk with God while things are good. Develop your faith, study, get to know God now before things get hard. Then, when deep in the pit, this is the old habits and coping mechanisms you fall back on. Your strong foundation.
Often, we have trouble hearing God in the midst of our turmoil. This is normal, our emotions are too strong/loud and our mind too tunnel-visioned. If we have that strong foundation, we can rely on what we know, vs what we feel, and we can learn to recognize His voice.
Pray Like the Psalmists
-Many of David’s and Asaph’s prayers were in the midst of suffering, and often they felt like God had abandoned them. Read these Psalms and see how they are patterned:
- the petition
- remembrance of God’s great deeds
- Praise God and thank Him
Strengthen Yourself in the Lord
-When David was distressed and all his people turned against him(1 Sam:30), he strengthened himself in the Lord. See Psalm 18.
-To strengthen oneself in the Lord like David did, look back on all the times in your life that God has come through for you. Remember how God pursued you and how faithful He has been. Write down your own Psalm 18.
-Remember how so many people in the Bible felt abandoned by God when they wrote their prayers in Psalms. But we know that God was right there with them, and He preserved these people’s prayers to prove it. Even King David, of all people, felt abandoned and penned Psalm 22. What could possibly lead David to write such an excruciating Psalm? But we know that God heard him because 1. he lived to a ripe old age in God’s favor, and 2. Those very words were heard by God and used by God on the cross, when even Jesus felt abandoned.
Psalms and Others Who Felt Abandoned By God but Weren’t
-Remind yourself of what is true of God not your current feelings. Such feelings come and go and may be real but aren’t reliable. Knowing God and His goodness and His faithfulness is reliable. That’s why it’s so important to get to know Him before the trials as much as you can. As in the paragraph above, many people (including David, Asaph, and Jesus) FELT abandoned, when they really weren’t.
See my notes on suffering if it helps. I will be adding a list of books on this subject that help a lot.