Not long ago, it felt like life was throwing haymakers. One thing happened, and before I could get my feet back under me, another happened. Then another. Then another. I remember thinking, "Here I am, trying to walk the best I can for You, and this is what I get? One punch after another?"
I want to be honest with you about where my heart was, because I know I am not the only one who has stood in that spot. I was not exactly angry at God. I was frustrated. Confused. I was doing my best to walk right, and it felt like the road kept getting harder instead of easier.
Then I sat down and read Ecclesiastes, and the light came on.
The Punches Were From Him
I always assumed the hard seasons were just something I had to endure, something God allowed while He was busy elsewhere. But Solomon writes something that stopped me cold:
"In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him." — Ecclesiastes 7:13-14 (NKJV)
Appointed. Not just allowed. Appointed. Both the good day and the hard day come from His hand, and He is not surprised by either. That series of events I walked through was not God losing track of me while the enemy took a few shots. It was God shaping and molding me, standing me up in faith instead of letting me stand on my feelings.
That was the part I had backward. I kept looking at my situation and trying to feel my way through it. But faith was never meant to stand on what you feel or what you can see. Faith stands on who He is.
Why He Lets It Feel Distant
Here is something else Solomon says just before that, in the same breath as patience and pride.
"The end of a thing is better than its beginning; the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools." — Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 (NKJV)
When the punches keep coming, the temptation is to grow hasty in your spirit, to grow proud, to demand answers now. But God is not asking you to understand the hard season while you're standing in the middle of it. He's asking you to trust Him in it.
Sometimes He can feel distant in those moments, and I believe that is on purpose. Not because He has stepped back, but because He is building something in you that only gets built in the waiting. Moses told Israel:
"And the LORD, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed." — Deuteronomy 31:8 (NKJV)
He is already ahead of you in the thing you are walking through right now. He has not left. The distance you feel is not abandonment. It is Him stretching your trust so it can carry more than before.
Go Eat. Go Drink. Be Merry.
Now, here is the part that will preach if you let it. After all that talk of adversity, vanity, and things we cannot control, Solomon does not tell us to grit our teeth and white-knuckle it through. He says something that sounds almost scandalous in the midst of a hard season:
"Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your works." — Ecclesiastes 9:7 (NKJV)
Already accepted. Not "once you figure this out." Not "once the hard season lifts." Already. Right now, in the middle of the punches, He has accepted you. So go eat. Go drink. Let your heart be merry, because your life is but a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow. God never intended for you to spend the vapor you've been given drowning in doom and gloom.
That is exactly what the enemy wants from you in a hard season. He wants you convinced there is no way out, no reason to be glad, nothing worth celebrating while the storm is still moving. He does not want you obeying Ecclesiastes 9:7. He wants you sitting in the ashes instead of eating your bread with joy. Doom and gloom is his territory. Joy in the middle of the fire is not something he can stand near.
Whatever Your Hand Finds To Do
Solomon does not stop at joy. A few verses later, he adds the other half of it:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going." — Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NKJV)
Joy in a hard season is not passive. It is not merely gritting out a smile and waiting for the punches to stop. It is picking up your hand, taking on whatever work God has set before you, and doing it with everything you've got, because the vapor is short and the grave does not negotiate for more time. The enemy wants your hard season to shut you down, to make you set your hands in your lap and quit. God's answer is the opposite. Eat with joy. Work with might. Both at once, in the same hard season.
Write It On Your Heart
I told you yesterday about writing His Word on your heart, and this is exactly why it matters. When the punches start coming, you don't want to be searching for truth for the first time. You want it already written in you, so deep it comes up on its own.
So write this down. Hard times are appointed by Him, not evidence that He has forgotten you. He goes before you and will never leave you. And even now, in whatever you are walking through, He has already accepted your work. Go eat. Go drink. Let your heart be merry. And whatever is in front of you today, do it with your might.
The Challenge
If you are in a hard season right now, one punch after another, I am not going to tell you to pretend it doesn't hurt. But I am going to challenge your faith the way mine was challenged.
Stop standing on your feelings and start standing on who He is. Refuse the doom and gloom the enemy is trying to hand you. And today, right in the middle of whatever you're walking through, go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, because He has already accepted you. Your life is a vapor. Don't spend another day in the ashes when He has already called you to the table.
Pastor Keith