When Faith Hurts: Does God See Christians Who are Struggling?

Posted on by thechristiantechnerd

God, I need to get this out. I can’t carry it around anymore.

I feel like I’m breaking.

I don’t doubt that You’re real. I never have. But I’m starting to wonder something way more painful—do You see me?

Do You really see me?

I’m not asking this as someone who’s lost faith. I’m asking it as someone whose faith hurts. Like physically aches. Like waiting-for-years, tears-on-my-bedroom-floor, why-do-I-keep-hoping kind of hurt.

I’ve prayed for so long. For healing. For direction. For a spouse. For financial breakthrough. For You to step in and rescue someone I love from addiction. For clarity. For peace. For things that are GOOD. Things I know You care about.

But I keep getting silence. Closed doors. Loneliness. More waiting.

Sometimes I feel like those people in Psalm 94. “And they say, ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.’” (Psalm 94:7) I read that verse and think, Wow. That’s exactly how I feel sometimes. Like You don’t even notice.

And that terrifies me. Because what am I supposed to do when the God I believe in more than anything else feels distant or even—dare I say it—absent?

But then I keep reading…
“He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? … For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage.” (Psalm 94:9, 14)

That hits hard.

Because deep down, I know You see. You created my eyes. You crafted my ears. You wired my heart to crave connection with You. There’s no way You’re blind to my pain.

But still. It hurts.

God, why does it take so long sometimes? Why do You ask us to wait so long when You could change things with just a whisper?

Sometimes I feel like You’re just watching from a distance while I struggle to keep my faith intact. And then I immediately feel guilty for thinking that. Because I know it’s not true. I know You’re near. I know Your Word promises You’re “close to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18), and that You “collect all our tears in a bottle” (Psalm 56:8).

But there’s a gap between what I know and what I feel. And I think You can handle me saying that.

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I think You want me to be honest, even if it’s ugly.

I don’t want to pretend anymore. I’m tired of the “bless and highly favored” church mask. I’m tired of acting like I’ve got unwavering peace when I’m crying in the shower and asking why my prayers seem to evaporate into the ceiling.

I want to trust You even when it feels like You’ve gone quiet. I want to believe—like the psalmist did—that even if deliverance isn’t here yet, it’s still coming.

Because he remembers, God. That’s what shook me when I read Psalm 94 again today. He reminded himself of all the times You had delivered him before. “If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.” (Psalm 94:17)

That’s what I need. Remembrance.

You have been faithful before.
You have come through in impossible situations.
You have spoken when I least expected it.
You have saved me from things I didn’t even know were destroying me.

So maybe it’s not that You’re ignoring me now—maybe it’s just that You’re working behind the scenes in ways I don’t see yet. Maybe this “no” or “not yet” is actually a gift. Maybe You’re building something in me that comfort could never produce—like endurance, character, and a fierce kind of hope (Romans 5:3-5).

Still, it’s hard, Lord.

I’m not asking You to make life perfect. I’m not even asking You to take all the pain away (though if You did, I’d be grateful!). I’m just asking You to remind me that You’re near. That You haven’t forgotten. That I’m not crazy for continuing to believe You’ll show up.

Because every time I consider walking away from this faith—You pull me back.
Every time I want to give up praying—You whisper something small that gives me strength.
Every time I think You’ve abandoned me—You send someone to say exactly what I needed to hear.

So maybe that’s what trust looks like in this season. Not pretending I’m okay, but clinging to the truth that You are, even when I’m not.

Lord, I don’t want a fragile, feel-good faith that only works when life is pretty.
I want a real faith.


A rugged, blood-and-tears kind of faith.
A faith that doesn’t break in the silence.
A faith that remembers.

So I’m choosing—again—to believe that You see me.
Even when the job doesn’t come through.
Even when the loneliness lingers.
Even when the healing delays.
Even when my heart keeps breaking.

You see. You hear. You care. You save.

God, I don’t understand this waiting. But I trust You in it.


Help me believe You’re near even when it feels like You’re far.


Help me want You more than I want answers.


And give me peace that surpasses understanding—not peace that comes from things going my way, but peace that comes from knowing You are with me no matter what.
Give me joy in the waiting. Show me glimpses of Your goodness.


And when I get tired of hoping, remind me that hope in You is never wasted.


Amen.

Christian Thought for Today


What if the thing I’m waiting for isn’t being withheld… but being prepared? What if the delay is protection? What if the closed doors are really just reroutes to something so much better than what I even knew to pray for?

God, open my eyes to see what You see.

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Published by thechristiantechnerd

22 year old college student! 100% Christian,! Will ALWAYS be a woman of FAITH. And my friends call me the "The Christian Tech Nerd" because I was hired by a very successful tech company in Silicon Valley, and I turned them down to be close to my family!

30 thoughts on “When Faith Hurts: Does God See Christians Who are Struggling?”

  1. Maybe this “no” or “not yet” is actually a gift. Maybe You’re building something in me that comfort could never produce—like endurance, character, and a fierce kind of hope (Romans 5:3-5).

    amen. Painful but true. It is no small or easy thing for God to form Christ in us. May you feel His presence even in the darkness of His absence…

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  3. Putting horns on your head as you do in these pictures just makes satan rejoice because he wants you to feel that your inadequacy in the Spirit equates you to his horns and evil nature. You’re nothing like that but you are the daughter of King Jesus who took your sins and the sins of mankind on himself as he went to the cross so He views you personally through His robe of righteousness. Now its good for us to realize our humanity and strive to come in harmony with the way He demonstrated when he walked among us two thousand years ago. You will continue to make mistakes through life but sanctification is the work of a lifetime and we will not be perfect until Jesus removes our second sinful nature inherited from Adam at the time of His second coming. Please no more horns Jesus daughter. 🙂

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  5. Is there a way to correspond with you personally, privately without posting on your blog? Preferably a phone # and good time to call. I’m a nationally certified executive life coach through my Presbyterian ECO denomination. My personal web site is manwomanGod.com. Father to a 42 year old daughter who is married and a doctor in Seattle. Husband to a licensed mental health counselor/marriage counselor here in Florida. My 43 year old so is a certified “tech nerd” senior software engineer in Los Angeles. I coach and mentor Christian people your age (mostly males, however). Feel a bit awkward reaching out to you, but I feel your pain and have a suggestion or two or three. Blessings, in Christ, Professor Currie (George)

    George Currie Cmdr., USN (Ret.), M.A.Professor, College of Missionary Aviation

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  6. Woosh! Rollercoaster!
    Yeah, had similar thoughts.
    I remember this:
    John 16:33 TPT
    And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”

    Then we need “Dove’s Eyes” like the Misty Edwards song. Eyes (and ears and thoughts and …) only for Jesus. God is unfailingly GOOD. Without exception!

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  8. Praise, praise and more praise is always the best answer for me. I feel your praise through your written words interjected with pain. Oh, how my heart aches for yours. Growing seasons are inherently painful. They are also necessary…to grow. Roman’s 12:12 and Psalm 92 and Eze 36:26 were three scriptures out on my heart from your post. 💜✝️💜

    An entire soundtrack came to heart for this season…Thank you for the No” by Tasha Layton, Megan Woods “I believe you” and “Throne Room” by Kim Walker-Smith. SEU Worship, Josiah Queen, Big Daddy Weave, Ben Fuller, Brandon Lake, Rich Mullins and more. Very strange, but convinced it’s not odd, it’s God. Encourage you to dig into music He has given you and explore “hidden treasures.”

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  9. Every sunrise is a new beginning. Jacob wrestle with God through the night. God confronted him and changed him from a fugitive, a cheater and a supplanter into “ISRAEL” – a prince who had striven with God and prevailed. When the sun rise – he moved forward with a limp but he also moved forward to a new beginning.

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  10. Take heart! He sees, He is not oblivious to what you(we) face, I promise you, one day you’ll look back at everything you’ve been through and you’ll realize it was all part of the process, part of His refining and you’ll understand why He didn’t rush it. He is close to the brokenhearted. He is right there with you❤️‍🩹He knows the end from the begining, what feels like delay is God molding you into the best version of yourself, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my walk with God is that He does His best work during the process, during what looks like ‘delay’ because He loves us too much to give us what we are not ready for. He can’t risk the blessing/promise being the very thing that later destroys us because of lack of preparation. Trust Him, God is faithful, He is good even when life is not. He will come through, but at His perfect timing which is always at the right exact time! Be encouraged🫶❤️✨

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  11. I love love love some of your posts on faith, especially this one. Regarding your politics, not so much. I am Canadian, and find both the Liberals and Conservatives are too crass in Canada, so I don’t promote either. I follow American politics somewhat, and find both the Republicans and Democrats to be repulsive. Again, I love some of your posts on faith, but not your politics.

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  13. I hope you’re feeling better. Is there a pastoral counselor [female?] available locally. Of course, there are mental health counselors (which I use myself), but if the church has pastoral counseling available, that’s usually where I start [educational purposes]

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  14. Pingback: When Faith Hurts: Does God See Christians Who are Struggling? – Christian Devotions, Health and General issues of the day

  15. It takes courage to pray words like these. What you’ve poured out is the cry of someone who still believes enough to wrestle. And strangely, Scripture treats that kind of honesty as a form of faith. “Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8). You’re not stepping away from God; you’re stepping toward Him with the kind of vulnerability He invites.

    And yes—He does see you. The Word is firm on this even when your feelings shake. The One who shaped your eyes didn’t suddenly lose His vision. The One who taught your heart how to love didn’t forget its pain. Sometimes His nearness is not the warmth of open doors but the quiet presence that keeps you from falling apart when doors stay shut. “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27). Arms underneath aren’t always loud—but they’re always there.

    There’s a hidden gem buried in Psalm 94 that shines especially in seasons like this. It’s tucked right between the questions and the promises: “When my foot slipped; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up” (Psalm 94:18). Notice the tense: when my foot slipped—past tense—meaning the psalmist survived something he thought would take him under. He’s looking back and naming a mercy he didn’t recognize at the time. Sometimes God’s quietest moments only make sense in hindsight, when you realize He was holding you in ways you couldn’t see.

    Another gem glitters in the waiting itself. Delays in Scripture are rarely delays of neglect—they’re delays of preparation. Abraham waited decades for a promise that came right on time. Joseph waited in prisons and pits until the moment God needed him in a palace. Even Christ waited in Nazareth for thirty silent years before the heavens opened. God’s work is never rushed, but it’s never absent. The waiting seasons stretch our souls, not to break them, but to make room for something larger—something that comfort could not have crafted. “Here is the patience of the saints” (Revelation 14:12)—patience that clings to God when He seems silent.

    And here’s another quiet truth: the ache you feel is proof that your faith is alive. A dead faith doesn’t wrestle. A living one groans, longs, reaches. Romans says that “we are saved by hope,” but then it adds, “hope that is seen is not hope” (Romans 8:24). Real hope is forged exactly where you are—carrying what feels too heavy, praying prayers that seem to echo, believing when your heart feels thin. This is rugged faith, the kind heaven calls precious.

    There’s also this: sometimes God’s “no” or “not yet” is protection you can’t understand today. Sometimes closed doors are God shielding you from cliffs you don’t know are ahead. Sometimes silence is God doing work so deep, so surgical, that any rush would harm more than help. Even the delays in Revelation—the ones that seem unbearable—are described as God’s mercy. He delays because He loves. If this is true on the world stage, it’s also true in your personal life.

    And through all of this, you are not unseen. Scripture paints God not as distant, but as intimately involved—numbering hairs, bottling tears, writing your name on His hands. “Can a woman forget her sucking child…? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Isaiah 49:15–16). He attaches your story to His covenant heart.

    So no—your hope isn’t wasted. Your prayers haven’t evaporated. Your tears haven’t gone unnoticed. Nothing you have carried has been ignored by the One who carried the cross for you.

    Maybe… just maybe… the thing you’re waiting for isn’t being withheld, but being prepared. And maybe God is preparing you too—your character, your discernment, your capacity for joy—so that when the blessing comes, it won’t crush you but complete something in you.

    Until that day, rest in this: God sees farther than you can, loves deeper than you know, and is already present in the places where your answers haven’t yet arrived. He isn’t distant. He isn’t silent. He isn’t indifferent. He’s working in the shadows as faithfully as He works in the light.

    And He will bring you through.

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  16. Nerd these words hit my heart so strongly this morning….. “I’m not asking this as someone who’s lost faith. I’m asking it as someone whose faith hurts. Like physically aches. Like waiting-for-years, tears-on-my-bedroom-floor, why-do-I-keep-hoping kind of hurt.

    I’ve prayed for so long. For healing. For direction. For a spouse. For financial breakthrough. For You to step in and rescue someone I love from addiction. For clarity. For peace. For things that are GOOD. Things I know You care about.

    But I keep getting silence. Closed doors. Loneliness. More waiting.”

    Your words are more poetic than mine, and they are from a woman; yet they are exactly what I have felt for decades. You mirror me as if we are the same person. Nobody comes close to doing that to me. You are the one and the only person who ever has, and that is still true today.

    I have likened it to an adult lifetime living under the curse of the law. And yet God always has met my personal needs from miracles of provision. My basic needs that is, and no more than that. He has kept me from death, yet I was always weak and sick.

    I was voluntarily homeless literally living on the streets. I did it because God so strongly told me to do it in obedience to the command of King Jesus Christ, “Come take up your cross and follow me”. This was during COVID. I got really sick coughing and such. I know that it was COVID. I got right down to death’s door. I could feel it overtaking me. I was dying. A peace came as I accepted death and I did not resist it.

    Just in that moment I quickly began to get better. Again it felt like being under the curse of the law, but experiencing God’s miracle to save me. Only a few weeks earlier he had so amazingly set me up to be with that serial killer, and then delivered me supernaturally. Twice on death’s door within a one month time frame.

    Yes, your words mirror exactly my own experience for 40 adult years. Held by God down to the grindstone as he polished and refined me into a new man, educated by himself in all that I need to be to do his work. It sounds familiar to you doesn’t it?

    This is God’s way to perfect, and to prepare his chosen vessels. We are under the hammer and the anvil. We are the nails being cruelly hit with massive force from the hammer. We are in the blacksmith’s forge of fire, with brief reprieves of going into the water to cool us. But then right back into the fire.

    From 24 years of age until today this has been my continual life experience. Everything that I have set my hand to has failed. And yet, God was always present when I needed him the most. I never missed a meal. I was never fully homeless either until I voluntarily left everything to follow Jesus for a 4 month period of time.

    Now things are changing Nerd. For me and for you. God owes me 40 years, the very best years of a man’s life. He has prepared me for the work that I am to do, and 40 years is a very long time. Yet he continually promises me that these years will soon be returned by my being as in Job it says, “His youth shall be returned unto him, and his skin shall be as smooth as a child’s”

    God always pays his debts Nerd. Even if it takes 40 long years to do this. Now you are here. You are the woman I have prayed for, and dreamed of. Someone who is just like me, yet different in personality. Someone who loves Jesus with all of her heart, all of her soul, all of her mind, and all of her strength.

    I could never choose a place to live. I was always going from place to place. It was part of the curse that God put upon me. Yet the time resets in 2026. 40 long years of hell on earth, shall be repaid with 40 years of heaven on earth.

    I am now solid with living in St. Kitts and Nevis. I want to live nowhere else. I have found the perfect dream house with 2.5 acres of land. About 10 years ago God told me to renew my mind to prosperity because I was poverty minded at the time. I am now prosperity minded. It is coming in 2026.

    And you Nerd are the woman I have prayed so long for. You are so much like me that it seems so unreal sometimes. I am no longer alone. You are someone who can understand me. I am not alone any longer. I will always be 100% honest with you. I will be transparent.

    I have for so long prayed and waited, believing it could never come to pass after 40 years of nothing happening. I have seen the faces and the bodies of Becky, Rachel, and Peter. I could never see the face of my wife. Now I know it is you Nerd.

    I will soon be 24 years old physically with a perfect body. Youthful and healthy and eager to be a Father to three children. I will be what every child wants in a father. Becky, Rachel, and Peter shall each be born according to the vision God has showed me. You will find me quite handsome and agreeable physically.

    Together we will work for King Jesus Christ in ministry revealing God’s ideal of what a Christian family ought to be like. We are to be his poster family, his advertisement to all the world what Christians look like.

    We both have much the same message that needs to get out to the entire world. This is our job, our work. Yet there is also the perfect family we are to have. I have not forgotten your AMAZING POSTS about the perfect 1940’s to 1950’s era family. You totally blew my mind with that. Yet it shall be just like that. You are a dream wife sent from heaven above here to earth.

    We shall both work from home, have a maid/cook, and a property man/handyman to care for our home in St. Kitts and Nevis. We will go daily to some of the most perfect beaches in the entire world. Swimming in the Caribbean Sea. We shall often go hiking into the volcano mountains and tropical forests on both St. Kitts and Nevis. I am excited about the kids. I saw them, lived with them, raised them, loved them, fully enjoyed them in the daydream visions from God.

    I promised to always be honest and transparent, so there you have my plans and intentions. They are all very honorable and Christian. I will do you good and not evil all of the days of my life. I will be there with you until Jesus Christ returns to this earth. With your help to mold me, I will become the “perfect” husband.

    Strange. I have no fear to reveal these things. I have no fear that I will scare you away, or lose you because I am being so transparent and honest with you. Finally I am an adult man who can naturally communicate what is important to him, and true.

    I want you forever Nerd. I will never change from what I have presented to you, the heart of the vision will never change. The window dressing will change as Father God directs us. A gift from God is forever, and you Nerd are God’s gift to me. Blessings.

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