Let’s set the records straight.
Faith in God is not some cosmic insurance policy against trouble. It doesn’t hand you a premium-free pass through life’s potholes, heartbreaks, or hospital beds. If anything, faith makes you a prime target for the kind of suffering that leaves you asking tough questions in the dark. Real faith isn’t proven by what you escape, but by how you survive—and who you become after the storm.
The pious are not pain-proof. The Bible, often quoted and rarely read with full honesty, puts it bluntly: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous…” Not some. Not a few here and there. Many. That’s not motivational poster material, but it’s truth. And in that truth, there is a kind of sobering grace.
When Faith Meets Frustration
Every person of faith—whether in the pews on Sunday or the floor at 2am praying tears into the tiles—has trusted God for something they didn’t receive. Healing that didn’t come. A job that fell through. A marriage that crumbled despite fasting and fervent prayer. You name it.
Now, some folks refuse to admit this. They cloak their disappointments in clichés like “It wasn’t God’s will,” or “He’s working it out behind the scenes.” Fine, maybe so. But denial doesn’t build resilience—honest confrontation does.
Faith, real faith, doesn’t need illusions to stand. It thrives in the gap between what we expected and what we endured. It survives unmet desires. It breathes in the tension between belief and reality—and still sings.
Hope: The Companion, Not the Guarantee
You see, hope is not the promise of a specific outcome. It’s the stubborn insistence that life is still worth living, even when you don’t get what you wanted. It’s the engine that carries you through seasons that don’t make sense.
Hope doesn’t always deliver what you pray for, but it keeps you from giving up completely. And sometimes, what you didn’t get becomes the very space where something deeper, more life-giving, quietly grows. Something like wisdom. Or strength. Or compassion. Or a new beginning you never imagined you needed.
That’s why hope is powerful. Not because it gives you control—but because it helps you let go without losing your soul in the process.
Faith Isn’t a Bargain. It’s a Posture.
Somewhere along the line, we were sold a commercialized gospel: Follow God and get health, wealth, promotion, marital bliss, visa approval, and unbroken happiness. No wonder people are disillusioned. That’s not faith; that’s a vending machine.
True faith isn’t transactional. It doesn’t say, “I will follow You if You bless me.” It says, “Even if You don’t, I won’t let go.” That’s not weakness. That’s guts. That’s Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego saying to Nebuchadnezzar, “Our God is able to deliver us—but even if He does not, we will not bow.”
You see the difference? That’s not spiritual naivety. That’s radical inner strength.
The Real Deliverance
“…but the Lord delivers him from them all.” That’s the second half of that Bible verse. But again, let’s not twist it. Deliverance doesn’t always mean escape. Sometimes it means endurance. Sometimes the Red Sea parts, other times you build an ark and float through the flood. Sometimes you walk out of the lion’s den untouched, other times, you carry the scars—and the story that goes with them.
God’s deliverance is not always dramatic. Often, it’s silent. It’s you waking up after grief and still believing in goodness. It’s you forgiving after betrayal. Laughing again after loss. That’s deliverance too.
Why This Matters
Because life will test you. It’s not a question of if, but when. And when it does, shallow faith will drown. But a tested faith—a real, rugged, honest faith—will walk through fire, cry through the night, curse under its breath, and still believe in morning.
We need to stop preaching a faith that only works in fair weather. And start living the kind that carries us through storms—battered but not broken.
So, no, faith isn’t a guarantee against misfortune. It’s not a deal you strike with heaven. It’s a posture, a way of being, a light in the fog. It is a refusal to let pain have the last word.
And in this mad, uncertain, often unfair world—that is no small thing.
Benjamin Okoh, a prolific writer, writes from the United Kingdom.
