Experiencing difficult times? The promises of God

Posted 24 Sep 2025

“1 But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. 2 When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. 3 For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.” – Isaiah 43:1-3

I just read this Bible passage and it reminds me that the Lord God promises to be by our side when we go through the trials, hardships, pains and difficulties of life. We might often say “why doesn’t God stop me having to go through these trials?” After all, if it was up to us, we would choose to avoid all difficult situations and just breeze through life! But that doesn’t appear to be the way God wants us to experience our lives. Perhaps our Heavenly Father knows that without any difficulties to overcome; to stretch us; we would simply float through life, but never develop the necessary character strength and tenacity that we really need. Faith, character, courage, tenacity, even identity, is forged in difficulty, not in ease.

So, God doesn’t stop us experiencing these hard times, but He does promise to go through them with us. That requires strong faith in an unseen God. As ever, we have a choice: we can crumble under the load of the hardship, or we can choose to trust that God will be right there with us, and will bring us through, in the end. We can choose to be angry (especially with God!) that we are experiencing these trials, or be thankful that God promises that they will not destroy us, and that they will in fact, strengthen us.

God is very explicit in telling us how and when He will be with us (emphasis added):
“When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.”

Someone might object saying “Isaiah is in the Old Testament, & was talking to the Israelites of his time, so why should we think God’s promises back then apply to us now?” That’s a good question. Christians in New Testament (& our) times know that Old Testament promises apply to them because Jesus fulfilled and validated everything in the Old Testament, making them heirs to these promises through their union with Him. When we recognize Jesus as the Messiah, that making Christian believers the “true Israel” and thus inheriting the promises made to the true Israel.

In addition, Jesus and the New Testament authors themselves consistently used the Old Testament principles and promises in their writings to provide encouragement, endurance, and profound hope to Christian believers, demonstrating these promises ongoing relevance to us today, and throughout all ages.

Therefore, we can confidently say, in complete co-operation and agreement with our Heavenly Father, that:
When we go through deep waters; rivers of difficulty and the fire of oppression, our Heavenly Father will be with us; we will not drown and the flames will not consume us. And as Isaiah says in chp 47, verse 17 “No weapon formed against me shall prosper (or prevail)” This is just one of many promises we can find, and believe, in the Bible, for us, here, today.

There are over 7,000 promises [1] in the whole Bible, and it would be a very useful, instructive and faith-building exercise to read, note and inwardly digest them all!

[1]
There isn’t a single, exact number for God’s promises in the Old Testament because different sources count them differently, but figures range from a few thousand to over 7,000, with some sources estimating 7,487 God’s promises made to humankind throughout the entire Bible. For example, the book All the Promises in the Bible by Herbert Lockyer provides a detailed count, while other sources cite figures such as 8,810 total biblical promises, with many in the Old Testament.

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