Lamentations 3: 25-27
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
Does anyone like long-suffering? Isn’t short-suffering better? Why Scripture say it would it be good to suffer and to wait? It’s because it is in that time of need that you can look and see the Lord satisfy that need – and you can see that you are under His protection.
Why is it good to bear the yoke, to struggle and to work hard in your youth? Because it trains you for hard times to come – so that when they come they are easier.
In your present struggles, sufferings, uncertainties or challenges – how can you look at the ‘dust in your mouth’ and still see hope?
NURTURE 
March 30th, 2020 at 10:35 am
I think that the challenges we’re facing today teach us to trust God because we have to look at our past to see how God has been faithful to comfort ourselves in this time and someday we’ll look back at this and remember that God is trustworthy and has all things work out for good.
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March 30th, 2020 at 9:55 pm
I think the biggest struggle that the world is going through right now is the virus. It is stopping the gatherings of community and splitting the families, increasing the anxiety every day.
We are now required to keep the social distance and go through self quarantine. I was first very upset about this but staying home has really given me some time to refresh. It has given me time to spend my time with God, meditating his words in prayer. Staying home also taught me how to appreciate small things like having a small tea time that I would not have if I went to school 😉
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April 6th, 2020 at 8:07 am
In my opinion, the challenges that we are struggling with now are the virus. Through this challenge, God will show us how great plan that he has, and the purpose of the challenge. God will show these at the right time. But, yet it is not the time that God is thinking about. So, we have to patient and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
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April 6th, 2020 at 8:54 am
There’s a multitude of different sayings from famous speakers from all walks and professions, saying essentially the same thing. Through all of them, the dust in my mouth isn’t seen exactly as a bad thing… more like a necessary evil, so to speak. Iron doesn’t sharpen unless ground against stone, people don’t improve unless ground against hardships.
When I look at the dust in my mouth, I see hope by looking forward at what it comes after it. When it rains, most people look forward to the storm passing. In a hurricane, people don’t hope for it to last. When you walk through hell, you don’t stop in hell. You keep going, looking forward at everything beyond the storm going on right now. Going through a hurricane, we look forward to the storm passing. We hope to live through it and come out the other side, safe and sound. That’s what I keep looking towards; the other side.
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April 8th, 2020 at 2:33 pm
This is Grace, by the way.
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April 6th, 2020 at 9:18 am
At the moment we are going through something that is very difficult and many of us do not know how to handle it because it feels like the world is ending. Our schedules are all changing and it is just difficult to be positive in such a situation. What I do know though is that one day this will all be over and we can go back to our normal activities. What I noticed that I keep asking myself is “Why?” I ask myself what is God trying to teach me, or even us, through this situation. Is she trying to teach me to appreciate the world better? Take better care of our planet? Spend more time with people? or Spend more time with God? – now that we have time?
In this difficult situation, I am going to focus on having hope that it will be over soon and I will focus on improving myself and spend time with God now that I have a lot of time and no excuses haha. The world is changing but we can still look at it with a positive and hopeful attitude.
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April 6th, 2020 at 9:35 am
One way we can see hope through hardships is through people and examples in the bible, for example, Joseph, who was sold to slavery was able to rise to a very powerful position in a very powerful nation. Like Joseph, the hardships that we are going through now may lead to the place that God wants you to be in, even if you cannot see it now. We can pray for guidance and peace through our hardships.
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April 6th, 2020 at 9:43 am
I think my current struggles revolve around my laziness, and I can’t find a way to be productive over a long period of time. I think this will help me to rely on God, and also help me to grow in character.
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April 6th, 2020 at 10:28 am
Now the world is struggling because of coronavirus. It started at the end of 2019 and now some parts of the world are getting worse but for some countries, they’re getting better by cure people so I think that’s a big hope that we can see for now. For example my hometown country South Korea has recovered more than half of them who got coronavirus. So I believe all people will be recovered soon and we can all escape from these struggles and stay healthy. 🙂
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April 6th, 2020 at 11:00 am
I think the challenges we face today can help us strengthen our faith in God, trusting that he will deliver us from these circumstances. Hence, despite the current trying times, we can see the good in these circumstances in that with every day that passes where we solely rely on him, we learn to trust God more. This helps us in that we learn to rely on God during any trying times in that we have, instead of relying on ourselves. Later in life, when faced with crisis, we know from experience that this too will pass we can just turn to God. This benefits us as we know that we do not have to be afraid because God is in control.
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April 6th, 2020 at 1:14 pm
In your present struggles, sufferings, uncertainties or challenges – how can you look at the ‘dust in your mouth’ and still see hope?
I think with pretty much everything there is a silver lining that we can see. In terms of corona, I think being secluded in our house can help with our relationships with family and our relationship with God. And of course, that doesn’t dismiss all the things that are happening but that doesn’t mean that good can’t come from it.
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April 6th, 2020 at 1:54 pm
In short term, suffering to me is not very pleasant, because it ruins my long-term plan that I’ve been long desiring to achieve. However, in long term, I believe there is a lot to learn from it. As opposed to short-suffering, long-term suffering allows us to reflect on the situation and ourselves, how our feelings and responses are, and how people around us are responding to it if the suffering is spreading worldwide (like Covid-19), and this helps us build a more honest perspective towards our actions, behavior, and the world. The Scripture says it would be good to suffer and wait because we learn to persevere and be patient in those times.
We all know that suffering is going to end some day, even though we never know when that is except God. Putting hope on the end of the suffering is one good way to learn from suffering, and specifically during the time of covid-19 pandemic, the only light we can rely on is God, hoping that He will end this on the right time.
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April 6th, 2020 at 4:01 pm
I agree al lot with what everyone else has said. For me personally, this COVID19 situation has helped me gain more empathy for those who are in worse situations than me and be grateful for what I have. I see the church rising to help those who are in need, such as the foreign workers from Malaysia that had no where to sleep after the border was closed. Individuals as well as organisations have opened up their homes to foreign workers. This gives me hope that God’s love shows through his people, no matter what the situation is. It is a very disappointing and chaotic time for most of us, but I believe that we can have peace in Christ.
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April 7th, 2020 at 10:34 am
We all have many struggles and uncertainties through life but there’s a time that God will help us go through it because we trust in Him. So we know that there is hope in our life by continuing to trust in Him and praying to Him.
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April 7th, 2020 at 11:21 am
I think right now, in the midst of all the struggle and inconvenient situations, I can still see hope by remembering that suffering has a purpose and helps you grow. Going through suffering and hard times also strengthens faith in God and I think that trying to remind and remember that God has a plan for all the suffering is a way of still being able to see hope even during hardships.
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April 7th, 2020 at 2:33 pm
At the rate society was going, humans were an unstoppable force that were flourishing and expanding. And it seems all it took to disrupt the global empire humanity has worked so hard to build was something as small as a virus. The virus has disrupted the economy as well as everyday life in society as we know it. Being forced to stay at home, I think the crisis reminds us we’re not the ones in control. If our “works” can be disrupted by something so “small,” we don’t have the power we think we do. It could be a wake up call from God. To remind us that God is so much bigger than us, that He is greater than we think He is, and that we need Him a lot more than we like to believe. This, surprisingly or not, is actually relieving, because we can realize that we don’t have to carry the world on our shoulders. We’re freed from the need to be in control of things and to be the “top.” Hardship reminds us that we’re more finite than we think we are, and that we need God. And when we accept that, we feel free, because we can then trust God, do our best everyday, learn to love, and most importantly, learn to genuinely enjoy God for all of who He is, not just who we want Him to be.
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April 7th, 2020 at 3:24 pm
We can still see hope despite the challenges that are around us by spending time with God. Although we may not get to do the things we want to do due to our current circumstances, it could be that God is trying to get us to rely on and spend time with Him instead of on different things. Eventually, we’ll be able to learn that through the challenges, we learn things we wouldn’t have if we didn’t encounter hardship.
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April 7th, 2020 at 4:51 pm
I think that the challenge I face today is the virus. Now I can’t go out to restaurants, my condo’s gym and basketball court is closed, and I have nothing to do at home. I am bored every day and my eyes hurt because I’m staring at the screen for so long, but one thing that I know for sure that has improved is that now I spend more time together with my family and God. I guess God still has a plan for us because he made me appreciate little things which I never thought it would create a huge impact, such as having a small talk with my family members and sleeping early. Even though this virus is making some part of our lives worse, but I still see hope because we can learn and gain more things through this situation.
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April 7th, 2020 at 6:05 pm
I think what God wants from us is the relationship between God and us. There are a lot of ways that we can do to get close to him. Since we all are not sure when the challenge will end, I think it is extremely important not only to ask God’s power but to trust him and always be open to his words. In order to grow one’s faith in God, I think focusing just on the relationship with God is the most important thing. Because God loves us no matter what and wants us to grow spiritually and mentally, the scripture says that God WILL help us will never leave us in such hard times. Moreover, God has a perfect plan for each one of us, so even though we have to go through such times for so long, by believing in him and his love, we can use this time wisely. Additionally, focusing on God’s power rather than the problem and being around people who are believers helped me a lot personally. Therefore, in short, not giving up on God and trying the best to build a close relationship with him can reduce tough times.
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April 7th, 2020 at 10:12 pm
Love without suffering does not exist. God suffered immensely for our sake to save us, thus sacrifice is imperative to truly feel love and realize how blessed we are. God only gives us what we can handle; therefore, if we suffer a lot, we can look at it as if God is challenging us to become stronger- take on that challenge! Suffering is a reminder to us that we are worthless temples when Jesus does not reside in us. The Creator wants us to rely on him, not become prideful and think we can live life without him. Although this virus occurrence may be lamentable, the only thing we can do is look at the positives; it is a reminder to never take our health for granted, nor our friends and family. Many people never get to suffer, typically turning out as disconnected and ungrateful souls; suffering is a blessing, an opportunity to feel how vital God’s presence really is.
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April 8th, 2020 at 1:15 pm
I think that challenging times often force us to rely on things that are not ourselves. When we’re struggling with something, we can often realize how incapable we are to handle our problems by ourselves, and so we often look to God for strength and direction since we are unable to have that by our own means. And no matter what we are going through, there is always something that can be made from it. And a lot of times it is very hard to see what good can come out of something that is so bad but putting faith in God to bring good from the bad is very necessary for our daily lives.
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April 8th, 2020 at 1:30 pm
Through the times of struggles and suffering I feel is where we most reach out for God. In a way, we are drawn more to God and feel more of a connection to God in the times of our struggles. Especially in times like now, it may be easy to go to God. We can see hope by trusting that God is in control and that he is only doing what is best for us. It may be hard to feel this, but everything is out of our own control, and we have to learn how to trust God and everything will then fall into place.
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April 8th, 2020 at 1:31 pm
I think we can still see hope even when we face challenges by focusing on the positive things that are happening around us. Although the world is currently struggling with Covid-19, I think we can try to focus on the good things that are happening around the world, for example, the pollution level is down.
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April 13th, 2020 at 12:51 am
There is the coronavirus right now which is causing many sufferings for families in the world and there are many Christians who have gotten the virus too. I am not Christian so I am not very knowledgable but I guess that there is always a reason for what God is doing. I haven’t been able to do the things I want but instead, I have been trying to find new things to do like cooking. All these sufferings are to make you stronger for the future.
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April 13th, 2020 at 1:20 pm
I think that when we are faced with trials and sufferings we tend to look for God more.By reaching out to God, we learn to trust him more and from there we know that God is in control of our lives and the things that we face and he will never lead us into any harm.Sometimes, it may be hard to trust that he has a bigger plan for us but we cannot forget that he is in control and only wants the best for us.
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April 13th, 2020 at 1:26 pm
As much as people like short-term suffering, short-term suffering does more damage in the end compared to long-term suffering. Long-term suffering could help people grow and improve themselves. Those who had it easy would not recover as easily if the real world hits them, and reality hits hard. Especially during the COVID-19 situation. Since most people are self-quarantining, it is the perfect chance to develop new skills. Everything happens for a reason and this could be God giving us the perfect chance to self-improve. There is more time to practice and create compared to having a regular everyday schedule.
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April 13th, 2020 at 1:32 pm
I think that through trials and sufferings we can still see hope through God. As we go through hard times, we tend to lean on God more than we usually do as we feel comforted by his presence.This teaches us to trust God as he is in control of all that we do and he knows best for our future and all we have to do is commit everything to him.
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April 13th, 2020 at 2:28 pm
Hardships are a way of life, it is how we learn things. If things were easy all the time, we will not learn anything. God uses those to tach us and to test our faith. it is an important part of human life. God uses hardship to make people see hope which is through Him. We should also not get down and try to stay focused on the positive things.
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April 15th, 2020 at 1:39 pm
People will definitely face some hardships or sufferings at least one time in their life because it is hard to just live their life without any hardships. Through hardships, we can still see hope because when people are facing some hardships or challenges, this is the time when we reach out to God. Also, through this time, we strengthen our relationship with God because we are seeking help and hope to God and in order to do this, we must have good relationship with God and have strong faith. Since, God knows everything and God can do everything, we must trust God and just follow God’s path because he has plans for us even though we are in hardships.
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April 15th, 2020 at 8:08 pm
In your present struggles, sufferings, uncertainties or challenges – how can you look at the ‘dust in your mouth’ and still see hope?
During our troubles we realize how much we need God and how good He is to us. God also uses our suffering to make us stronger, more resilient, and draw us closer to Him.
Romans 8:28
Romans 5:3-4
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April 19th, 2020 at 11:35 am
The coronavirus is a blessing in disguise. Although it may limit us, we can make the most of it by using what we do have and doing what we can do to make the world a better place. For example, we can use the internet to spread hope instead of rumors and fear. There is so much we can do to help people in this time, you just need to look a bit harder.
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April 21st, 2020 at 2:27 pm
I believe that is incredibly difficult for someone who has not met God or doesn’t completely trust God. One might think, “why is this happening to me? Why is God doing this to me?” and lose trust in God, believing he is not there for them. However, I was able to see hope during my hard times as my parents gave me a gift as great as life, an introduction to God. Through suffering and hardships, my parents made sure I knew God had a plan for me and did everything that was happening to me out of pure love. Though it was hard, I kept my head up, knowing I had the Holy Spirit behind my back. The dust in my mouth was getting kicked out of my previous school. It was something that could’ve happened to so many kids guilty of the same sin I had committed, yet it was only me who got punished. But my parents believed it was because I was special, and God was leading me towards something better, like ICS. So for those who believe it is never going to get better, keep your head up no matter what, through the harshest times, as God is behind you, shaping you into the great person he loves.
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April 22nd, 2020 at 8:19 am
During this time, where we are living through a pandemic, I think that God does everything for a reason. While everyone in the world is in a different situation, we are all facing the same struggles together. I think sometimes, God puts us through certain struggles so that we can seek Him, and so that He can prepare us for things to come. We go through certain struggles and hardships so that we can be prepared for whatever may come in the future that we have to face.
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April 23rd, 2020 at 1:44 pm
I hope you are doing well we are in difficult times but we need to be strong and understand the value that we have in our families whether the ones we chose or the ones we were born with.
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April 24th, 2020 at 1:43 pm
I think that a big struggle the world is going through right now is the coronavirus. Many are finding it very hard to understand why this virus is coming but I feel like I have actually learned the message and lesson behind it all. Many people nowadays have trouble feeling empathetic for each other. We like to care about ourselves, and it’s basically in our nature to feel this way. We also forget that our actions can affect others as well. But now with this virus we are forced to think outside of ourselves, we have to be better because people’s lives depend on it. Anybody below 60 will likely survive this virus, there’s no reason to be afraid! But we are forced to think, “If I get this virus and I accidentally give it to an elderly person, or a person with underlying health issues will they survive this?” We simply cannot be selfish during this time. The world needed to understand this lesson, because sometimes we cannot afford to be selfish. Sometimes as humans we must be pushed to such extremes to learn, and I feel like this the extreme we needed to be pushed to in order to learn this valuable lesson. So although we have the ‘dust’ in our mouths we know that doing something as simple as staying home could truly save a life, and that is the hope we see during this troubled time.
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April 26th, 2020 at 11:27 pm
I’ve been suffering with depression since i was in elementary and i feel like it’s a curse i always have. But recently I’ve had the pleasure of teaching kids and some of them I noticed had cuts on their arms similar to mine. I pulled them over and spoke to them, and helped them talk things out. Being someone who knows what they’re going through makes it easy to relate and make them feel better. when having depression you often feel like it’s not that serious people often make jokes about suiside and self harm so people who genuinely do suffer when they mention it people see it as a “relatable joke”. I feel that being able to make someone young going through something terrible feel like they are normal and are not alone. It’s a blessing that I am able to help others out with something I am still struggling with.
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April 28th, 2020 at 11:06 am
I think the struggles with the coronavirus are teaching us to be prepared for future hardships. Without these struggles, we may never know how to fight future struggles. I think we can learn how to empathize and sympathize with the people around us because we are all in the same boat and are all in a similar time of struggling.
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May 3rd, 2020 at 6:45 pm
We can overcome struggles by believing that God will handle our struggles in a way that we can’t even imagine. In fact, God sometimes gives us the struggles to make paths for His wonderful plan for us. For example, when Corrie ten Boom was sent to the concentration camp along with her sister Betsie for hiding the Jews according to God’s will, Corrie lost Betsie due to the camp’s grueling condition, however, she later confessed in Hiding Place that God not only let her get released by making Nazis to mistake her number but it was part of God’s plan for her to set up a camp for Jews for both physical and psychological recoveries and her experience at the concentration camp was for her to be able to empathize with the Holocost victims since she had same grueling experience. Because she had faith in God and let God work in herlife, this made her able to be a therapist for Holocost victims and a camp owner inorder for them to be able to recover from their physical and psychological injuries. If Corrie didn’t believe that God would handle her problems, she wouldn’t have not been able to be a camp owner and one who does good things for God. However, because she heeded her father’s advice, “Some knowledge is too heavy for children (means that humans can’t know all but God does),” she could be not only a camp owner for the victims but also another person who influenced the lives of many people. However, since she trusted God, she could do great things for Him and most importantly to survive in Holocaust. So Corrie’s story shows that God does wonderful things in one’s life.
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May 10th, 2020 at 2:36 pm
Long-suffering will make you appreciate the things and people you had before, or after an event. It’s also better because it makes us realize bad habits or things we just didn’t realize back when we didn’t suffer. Like a bad habit that most people had was wasting money carelessly, but because of COVID 19, we have to try to not waste as much money as we possibly can. Another thing that comes with long-suffering is hope. We would hope onto the people that we would think will save us. For some, it would be God, and the others would be hoping for the vaccine. The longer we hope the stronger it becomes.
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