How to Trust God in Hard Times: Dane Ortlund

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How to Trust God in Hard Times

Guest:Dane Ortlund

From the series:Deeper, Where Faith Gets Real (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:November 4, 2026

Dave (00:04):

Describe a painful moment in your life, or season, that led to growth. And hopefully you’re not going to say my marriage to you—to me.

Ann (00:15):

Every season, I feel like there’s been painful moments that have led to growth. I mean, the most obvious would be our marriage in terms of—

Dave (00:23):

You are going to say our marriage.

Ann (00:24):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave (00:37):

And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Describe a painful moment in your life that led to growth.

Ann (00:55):

I mean, the most obvious would be our marriage, because I think that we have both been at the bottom of the pit in terms of feeling like we were desperate, we were losing our marriage, and yet, that but God moment, but God has lifted us up, saved us, saved our marriage. And I would say some of the most spiritual growth and the deepest times with Jesus were in those moments.

Dave (01:22):

Yeah. And in those moments, I know I felt, “Where are you, God? Why are you letting this happen? This is not going to be helpful.” And yet we’ve learned God often uses our pain to grow us up to Him. And we’ve learned that. We’re going to talk about that today.

Ann (01:38):

I know. It’s going to be fun.

Dave (01:39):

We’ve got Dane Ortlund back with us. Dane, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.

Dane (01:43):

Thanks, Dave and Ann. Good to talk with you.

Dave (01:45):

Again, every time we start a program, I look over and you’re just smiling. I don’t know what you’re thinking.

Ann (01:51):

He’s got the best laugh ever. You just want to be with him and hang out to hear his laugh.

Dave (01:56):

So what does the smile mean?

Dane (01:58):

Oh, I’ve just enjoyed listening to you guys kick these shows off. You’re so personable and relatable and honest. I love it.

Dave (02:03):

Well, the funny thing is half the time we don’t know what the other one’s going to say. In real time, it’s our real response. But we know you as a pastor of Naperville Presbyterian in Naperville, Illinois. We were just there.

Ann (02:19):

Oh yeah, we were just there.

Dave (02:20):

Just a beautiful suburb of Chicago. You’re married with five kids. You’ve written several books. You’re a real theologian, let alone a man of God. And this book that you’ve written called Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners is fascinating about how we really grow spiritually. We’ve spent a little time talking about that. But one of the things you get into in the book is what we just brought up, this idea of how God uses pain or hard things in our life to actually put us on a path of growth. Talk about that.

Dane (02:53):

Well, we can’t read long in the New Testament without coming upon this theme. And I would just want to say sometimes we can talk about the church in the West as being free from suffering. And that’s true in some ways, overt persecution. But I would want to say right off the bat, Dave and Ann, that every single one of us is affected by the fall and every one of us is navigating life with a host of internal adversities, anguishes, pains, fears, worries, sins, sufferings. And so the first thing to say here is when we talk about anguish and pain in the Christian life, this is not for like five or 10% of believers. This is for all of us just in its own unique manifestation for each one of us. Pain is simply, I mean, we’re talking about it in deeper, how do we grow as believers?

(03:47):

Pain is simply one unavoidable key ingredient that the divine chef uses in causing us to grow and flourish as believers.

Ann (03:58):

That’s so depressing, Dane, honestly.

(04:03):

Because we all hear that and we get gripped with fear like, oh, it’s around the corner.

Dane:

Oh I know. I know.

Ann:

It’s coming. But even on our honeymoon, this is, I mean, Dave and I’ve talked about this before, but on our honeymoon, we went on a two-week honeymoon, and it was amazing. But in the middle of the night, I woke up and I have this sense of God just pressing in on my heart to start reading James, the book of James. So as a young bride, the next morning I told Dave about this whole thing. I’m like, “Hey, I had this impression last night that we’re supposed to start reading the book of James together. I feel like this is something that’s really going to be important for our future.” So we start reading it. Dave has it pulled up.

Dave (04:44):

Yeah, I just pulled it up. James 1 verse 2, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” I’m like, “What are we reading James for? We’re on our honeymoon.” But Dame, I’d love your perspective on this as we talk about how God uses trials and pain in our life. I’ll read it and then you can just comment. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Ann (05:21):

And we kind of thought it’s something around the corner that will be difficult, but we clung to that last part of that scripture that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Talk about that.

Dane (05:33):

Well, I remember going to the beach of Southern California, Corona del Mar with my family growing up. I was six, eight, ten years old, waded out into the Pacific Ocean and the waves would start coming up at us. And first they’d hit your ankles, then they hit your knees and you keep walking out and then it’s hitting your waist and you’re kind of destabilized and then you keep going out. The Pacific is cold. It’s not like the Atlantic, and you keep walking out there and then pretty soon if you keep going unavoidably, a wave will come along that goes over your head, throws you, you’re tumbling all over, upside down, totally discombobulated, disoriented. And that is actually what happens to us in life. We have garden variety, ankle high, knee high, waist high pain. But what happens is God loves us too much to let us only remain the level of depth that we will have if that’s the only kind of pain we ever have.

(06:28):

But He wants, as James 1 says, He wants the testing of your faith to produce steadfastness. So when that over the head wave comes, then we are forced to either get cold and cynical and abandon faith or to believe what we always said we believed but have never had to truly bank on it. And so in other words, our professed belief and our actual belief have to come together or move further apart. That’s what suffering is doing. It’s making us say, do I actually believe what I say I believe theologically? And at that fork in the road, the Lord in his Fatherly, tender, rugged kindness is pulling us into depth with Him and giving us steadfastness so that we’re not lacking anything but are perfect and complete.

Ann (07:17):

Dane, have you experienced that? Have you gone through that?

Dane (07:21):

There have been some episodes, a few episodes in my life, Ann, where I believe that I have, but I also suspect, and maybe this is my own weirdness, I suspect the biggest one is probably out ahead of me. I don’t know, just as I look around at the saints and I’m 42. As I look at this, I’m probably half dead. My grandfather died when he was 84.

Ann (07:43):

Honey, what’s that make us? We’re mostly dead.

Dane (07:46):

Maybe I’m going to get hit by a truck tomorrow, but just looking at my family, okay, that’s where the Ortlunds have tended to go in their mid 80s. All right. I suspect it’s probably out ahead of me. I do know the work that I’m doing as a pastor now, glory and honor and privilege though it is, is very painful and is a fertile environment for deep pain. So I don’t really know. My wife and I have walked through a valley or two together that the Lord has enabled us to weather. Those have deepened us, but I’m just being real honest here guys. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced something that has been like a Job-like over the head kind of wave.

Dave (08:28):

How would you sit with a dad and mom, which I’ve had to do a few times, not 10 or 20 times, but as they’ve lost their child, for a decade coached high school football right over here near our house where our three boys went to high school and one of our linebackers died. He passed with cancer and the whole football team, all the families in our community are at our church for the funeral. And that’s the public moment. But before that public moment, I’m in their basement as they’re weeping and trying to understand where God is in this moment as they lose their high school son. And then you come to a verse like, “Consider it all joy, my brothers.” You think joy? Is there joy in the middle of a valley and how do we find that? That would be the question I think a lot of us would say, “How do we find joy?

(09:25):

And is he talking about happy?” Give us a little perspective on that.

Dane (09:29):

Oh man, you’ve been a pastor for many years, Dave, and you have walked through this far more than I have. I do remember a few months ago doing a funeral with two tiny little coffins for children who had perished.

(09:42):

And here are a few thoughts that come to mind, guys. Number one, this is real life and this is common real life. This is not something that just is for 1% of us. So let’s go deep with God now so that when that wave comes, we can weather it by His grace. Thought number two, the Bible says weep with those who weep. The Bible never says provide theological answers for those who weep. So Romans 8:28 is true. God works all things for good for those who are called according to his purpose. But Romans 12:15 says weep with those who weep. We do Romans 12:15 before we say Romans 8:28 to someone.

(10:28):

If we actually try to tell them answers, even true answers when the pain is raw, we are actually being like Job’s friends, his miserable comforters, and we’re being theoretical about it. And what we’re doing is we’re exacerbating the pain. We’re actually making it worse. But when my wife and I walked through a tragedy in August of 2018, our pastor walked into the hospital room, and he didn’t say a word, and he was being a good pastor. He wept with those who were weeping. And the ministry of listening/solidarity is a profound, rare and neglected ministry. Wouldn’t you say, Dave? The ministry of sheer and mere solidarity, and don’t let that awkward silence make you say something stupid because when people suffer stupid things that church people say doubles the suffering. What they need is—on Monday night of this week, a couple nights ago, we learned of a pregnancy that had gone south.

(11:39):

Stacy came home and gave me the news, a young couple we love, and I thought, “All right, I’ll give him a call.” And she said, “Don’t you think we should just show up?” And I didn’t want to do that because it would’ve been more uncomfortable.

(11:54):

But I thought, I said, “You’re right. We just show up.” So we did that and it was the right thing to do. So those are a couple thoughts that come to mind.

Ann (12:03):

I have a good friend who has two teenage sons that are really, really struggling with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. And she’s actually been reading the book of Job because she feels like she’s in it. But I sent her this quote from your book and it says, “Our natural instincts tell us that the way forward in the Christian life is by avoiding pain.” But the New Testament tells us that pain is a means, not an obstacle to deepening in our Christian maturity. And I thought, man, that’s so good. It’s so true because we, of course, it’s just natural to want to avoid it. We hate pain. We don’t want to go through it. But talk about that deepening part of where it can take us.

Dane (12:47):

The Lord Jesus Christ himself didn’t go from life to resurrection glory. He went from life down into the ignominy, the shame of suffering and rejection and death up into resurrection glory. And the New Testament teaches in Romans, Ephesians and Galatians that actually we who are united to Christ have the same pattern. We share in His sufferings in that kind of way. Paul Miller wrote a book called J-Curve that plays this out in a couple hundred pages. We go pain, it’s not only the big arc of our life. We go from life up into heaven and we go through pain, but actually every day. 2 Corinthians 4 talks about this too. The way we experience resurrection power, life in our mortal existence is by not by avoiding pain, but by receiving it, sent from God, receiving it, embracing it, turning it into faith, walking by faith, not by sight, saying, okay Lord, I’m all in.

(13:54):

I’m yours. I’m never going to suffer hell and condemnation the way the Lord Jesus did. Any pain we ever suffer isn’t that—the ultimate pain. He went through that on our behalf. Okay. But now God is shaping us and chiseling us and that hurts. He’s chiseling us to be something beautiful. So yeah, you’re right, Ann. It’s a way that God is actually, ultimately bringing us into joy. And you’re right, Dave, it’s not chipper happiness. It doesn’t mean we smile more necessarily. It might mean we cry more, but tears can reflect joy, real joy, biblical joy, not just pain because we’re in touch with ourselves and with reality, with actual life, with God. Tears are some of our most sublime and joyous moments. And so pain is one way that gets us there.

Dave (14:50):

I’m almost positive that our listeners have no idea how important they are to our program.

Ann (14:58):

I think you’re right.

Dave (14:59):

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Ann (15:09):

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Dave (15:19):

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Ann (15:48):

Join us.

Dave (15:52):

I know that when I was in college and just gave my life to Christ, for some reason I ended up in the book of Philippians. And one of the verses I’ll never forget was Philippians 3:10, which is really what you just said, Dane. I mean, Paul writes that I may know Jesus or know him and the power of his resurrection. And the reason I remember this so vividly is when I read that, I’m like, “Yeah, that’s what I’m in for, man. I want to know the power of the resurrection of Christ.” I’m like, “Yes, this is why I’m following Christ. I’m going to be a new man.” And I wanted to stop right there and then I read the next phrase. I’m like, “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death.” I’m like, “What?

(16:36):

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Why is this in the Bible?” And then it’s just like I said, that I’d be becoming like him in his death that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. It’s just what you said. But I think when the pain comes in our life, we want to avoid it, but sometimes we can’t and we’re in it. So you write so well. When that pain’s there and we’re working through the valley, you say there’s two choices. Talk about that because growth doesn’t happen if we make the wrong choice in the middle of that pain.

Dane (17:08):

Sometimes we’ll meet a fellow saint at our church or in some context and they are a professing Christian. They’re a true born-again believer, but you can tell that there’s a certain hollowness, there’s a certain artificiality to them. They’re just painting it on. They’ve dialed it in. And I wonder if in many of those cases, what has happened is they came to that fork in the road moment of deep pain in their life. And instead of moving towards God, instead of banking on Him afresh ever more deeply, they stiff armed Him and cooled towards Him and went the other way towards cynicism is what it is, rather than faith. Cynicism is the opposite of faith. And therefore, instead of sweetening, they soured. I can testify to ways that my own dad, through adversity and pain and deep mistreatment, sweetened rather than soured. And I remember talking to him on the phone when he was in anguish and he was communicating time and again out of his distress that he and the Lord Jesus were going to make it.

(18:25):

It was going to be okay. He had Jesus. And he was experiencing a depth of fellowship, communion, friendship with Jesus Christ that he or none of us can, when life is a bed of roses, enjoy. We just can’t. I mean, we praise God when life is going well. Thank you, Lord. But when life goes south, when we are fired unjustly, when one of the kids says, “I never want to see you again,” when the malignant report comes back, what is going on right there? Are we then going to say, “Okay, I guess God isn’t good after all. Maybe He actually hates me.” Or are we going to say, “Hang on, He already proved in the death and resurrection of His own Son, which I deserve to experience that death, the depth to which He is willing to go to love me. Therefore, I know that anything that washes into my life now has to be from the very gentle and tender, if painful, hand of a Heavenly Father.” And here’s what we do.

(19:38):

We let God love us more deeply than He ever has before. That is what we let Him do.

Ann (19:46):

I think we all know when we’re at that point, when we’re at that crossroads. I was 38 years old when my 45-year-old sister died of lung cancer and she had never smoked. My parents hadn’t. She had four kids, four boys, struggled in a hard marriage, but man, every morning at 4:30, she was up reading her Bible. And when she passed away, man, I remember being at that fork thinking, “This doesn’t even make sense. I don’t get it. What is the point of her life being gone?” And man, I can remember being right there of thinking, because I couldn’t see anything good in it. And you can’t explain it and you can’t wrap it in this little bow with, “Well, God is good.” Even though I knew that, but I remember being on the floor of my bathroom face down before God saying, “I don’t understand.” As you said, Dane, it was like a wave just kept tumbling.

(20:46):

I was tumbling over and over in that wave. But there was a point when I remember saying, “I don’t understand, but I will follow You because I know You are good and I know I can trust You.” And my feelings, my happiness didn’t come back immediately. It took a long time. And I remember just soaking in worship, but I couldn’t sing because my heart and my soul felt dead. But I remember thinking I need to feed my soul and I need to be at this point of being in His presence for me to get that back. But man, and it’s still hard, but God is good and He restores our joy.

Dane (21:25):

Amen.

Dave (21:26):

I know that every time I’ve sat with a man or a couple that I walk away going, man, I want that depth of maturity. I want that dynamic relationship with God that they have. Every time I’ve thought that about a person or a couple, it’s true every time, 100%, they have gone through real pain. And it isn’t without it. It’s like they’re where they are because they went through pain, made the choice to be better, not bitter. And I’ve been around others just like you said, Dane, they’re bitter. They’ve lost their faith. They’re mad, they’re angry. And it might have been the exact same type of valley, and yet the choice in the valley is what determines what happens out of the valley. And it’s like, yeah, I want that faith, but guess what? God’s like, “Yeah, you’re not going to get it without some hard times, and I’m going to be with you through the whole thing.

(22:20):

And yet if you want to grow, let’s go because it’s going to be not easy, but it’s going to be beautiful in the end.”

Dane (22:27):

God wants us to learn to trust Him in the absurdities of life. It’s one thing to trust Him when there’s pain, but we can see what He’s doing with it. But when there’s pain and it makes no sense, and like you just said, it makes absolutely no earthly sense, that’s when He wants to say—oh, C.S. Lewis has a great line in Till We Have Faces where he says, “God doesn’t want to give us answers when we are perplexed in life. God wants to be the answer. He is the one before whom all questions die away.” So that’s the kind of Christian man I want to be.

Dave (22:58):

Yeah. And I would just add, if you’re listening and your pain is your marriage, like you’re listening right now and your pain is your husband or your wife or your kids, and you’re probably thinking it’s because I’m married to this person or I’m married. No, it’s not because of that. It’s because life is hard and pain is a part of it. And I just want to say, hold on to Jesus. He is your only hope. And if you will allow him to walk you through this, there’s light on the other side and it’s actually beautiful.

Ann (23:28):

Dane, I was just hoping, would you pray? I’m thinking so many people are resonating with that pain part. Will you just pray for them and us?

Dane (23:36):

Absolutely. Let’s pray, friends. Our Father in Heaven, we entrust our lives to You. We are so thankful for what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 6 when He said, “Our heavenly father knows what we need before we even speak it.” And yet You are so good You want us to speak it to You and enjoy that fellowship with You. Won’t You take each of us into a deeper depth of fellowship, trust, and communion with You so that whatever washes into our lives, it can only ultimately net out for our good and glory and growth and deepening. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Dave (24:14):

Thanks, Dane.

Ann (24:15):

Thanks.

Dane:

Thank you, guys.

Ann:

I kind of would like to go to Dane’s church.

Dave (24:21):

We can.

Ann (24:23):

If we lived close to him, we could listen to him.

Dave (24:25):

And guess what? We’re not going to go to his church, but we can read his book.

Ann (24:28):

That’s true.

Dave (24:29):

It’s called Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners. And that’s you and that’s me.

Ann (24:33):

Amen.

Dave (24:33):

You can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann (24:45):

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