Rising to Meet the Challenge: Bible Verses About Faith in Hard Times

When you go through tough times, what keeps you steady? Our lives, no matter how charmed they are, eventually encounter obstacles. When trouble comes, we need to be prepared to weather the storm and thrive despite the unhospitable circumstances we find ourselves in. For the person who believes in God, Bible verses about faith can help them remain grounded while everything is being turned upside down around them.

It’s no surprise that the Bible has many verses about faith in hard times, not least because God’s people have generally been a minority beset with many hardships. Witnessing the faith of others in such circumstances can strengthen your faith, and understanding the purpose of the trials we face can be a further encouragement when you’re going through a tough time.

Understanding faith

Contrary to popular belief, ‘faith’, at least according to the Bible, is not believing something without evidence or because no evidence exists. Biblical faith is an entirely different creature because Biblical faith is walking in obedience to what you have already witnessed and experienced. Acting in line with what God has already revealed about Himself and the nature of reality is what Biblical faith is all about.

The New Testament writers, for example, urge others to place their faith in Jesus because of who He was and what He did. They witnessed His life, miracles, death, and resurrection. Through Jesus, we got a glimpse of where the world is headed. It is a world in which enemies are reconciled, wounds are healed, where might is not right, where humility and love triumph, and what is broken in our world is restored.

Faith is placing our trust in God based on what He has already revealed of Himself. He has shown that He loves us by dying on the cross for His enemies (Romans 5:8), and faith is taking the next step. It is a step of obedience, because of what God has shown to be true of Himself by His actions.

Faith is not just mental assent, but it’s an act and a way of life that demonstrates active trust in the God of the Bible. That way of life may not make sense to others. What sense is there in forgiving your enemies and loving your unlovable neighbor? But Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have given us a glimpse into how the story ends, and that’s why it makes all the sense in the world.

Selfishness, greed, anger, deception, and hatred will have no place in the world to come, and so those who have faith in God live in ways that align with that future reality.

Bible verses about faith in hard times

Biblical faith, then, is more than just a set of ideas. It’s a posture, a way of life, a consistent act of obedience rooted in the reality of who God is and what He has shown us. In the letter to the Hebrews, the author says “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.” (Hebrews 6:19-20, NIV)

The hope that God’s people have in His promises acts like an anchor for our souls. An anchor has one main function, and that is to hold a ship in place when the current or storms threaten to drag it away.

This verse in Hebrews is interesting because the people it was written to were experiencing hardship. God’s people were never promised that they wouldn’t go through a hard time. Jesus promised His followers that they would endure persecution.

On the night He was betrayed to death, Jesus said to his closest followers, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, NIV)

Earlier, he had told them this: “Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” (John 15:20, NIV)

We need Bible verses about faith as an anchor because we will go through tough times. The question is whether what anchors you is substantial enough to hold you in place amid the storm. Whether it’s political uncertainty, sickness, death in your family, economic instability, relationships breaking down, a global pandemic, shattered dreams, hatred for your faith, or the loss of your job, followers of Jesus have an anchor that can sustain them.

Bible verses about faith in hard times remind us not only that we will go through hard times, but that others have in the past as well. May these verses encourage you and strengthen your faith as you continue to hold firmly in the dark the truths you knew in the light.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. – James 1:2-4, NIV

Does the hardship you go through have meaning and purpose? It’s a terrible thing for a human being to lose their sense of purpose, and for them to see their life as meaningless.

James, writing to people that were scattered across the Mediterranean basin and beyond, told his readers to see the end goal of their trials. They can have joy even while being persecuted because their faith is being tested, and that testing will produce fruit. Hardships will come because we live in a broken world but Bible verses about faith can serve to mature you can help you hold on a little longer.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. – 1 Peter 1:3-9, NIV

Similar to the verses in James, this beautiful passage was also written to believers who were undergoing persecution for their faith. The apostle Peter reminds his readers of who they are, and what gifts they possess. Their hope is a living one, rooted in the resurrection of Jesus who overcame death. Unlike other hopes which are not guaranteed, or which can fade with time and circumstance, theirs is an imperishable hope and inheritance.

These people suffered grief in different kinds of trials. Loss of loved ones, being displaced from their homes, and being ridiculed by their neighbors and society are just a few examples. But again, Peter reminds them of the value of their faith, and that going through hardship and persevering refines their faith.

He compares that faith to gold. It’s better than gold, and hardship is like a fire that purifies their commitment to the Lord as they await the fulfillment of all that God has promised. It is remarkable to see how people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie Ten Boom, Maggie Barankitse, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others who experienced horrible trials throughout history continued to walk in even deeper obedience toward God despite, or perhaps because of, those trials.

Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them.

They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. – Hebrews 11:35-40, NIV

Hebrews 11 has been called the cathedral of faith because it traces the story of the Bible and highlights the many people throughout its history that trusted God and lived in obedience to His revelation.

What is fascinating about the chapter is the many ways people trusted God and took Him at His word, living in ways contrary to their culture and taking steps of obedience that don’t make sense unless you factor God into the equation. The verses quoted above are just a sampling of the hardships people endured as they obeyed God and lived against the current of society.

Faith has a future element. The people named in these verses and the rest of Hebrews 11 hoped for a resurrection and a better, different world. When we go through hardship, we too can hold onto our hope for the fullness of the Kingdom of God. We can endure hardship now because God is the God who can take a seeming defeat like a shameful death on a cross and turn it into salvation for the world.

We can continue walking in obedience, living in countercultural ways, and trusting God because He has shown us who He is, and faith is placing our confidence in this God and His purposes for us.

Hard times will come, but we can continue to trust God and walk in obedience to Him. Our faith matures as we persevere in hardship, and we have the company of many saints who have gone before us on this journey (Hebrews 12:1-2).

The journey of faith isn’t an easy one. Sometimes what we go through is overwhelming, we may have doubts, and we can feel our love grow cold because of disappointment and hurt.

Don’t walk alone, and don’t shy away from engaging your doubts. Many in the Bible had doubts, but they engaged their feelings through practices such as lament and meeting with God’s people. Reach out to someone like a Christian counselor to talk through your experiences and process your emotions about the tough times you’ve gone through.