Behind a frowning providence: God and tough times

I don’t know about you, but 2025 has been a rough year for a lot of people, including us. And it’s not over.

There’s the breast cancer treatment my amazing wife has gone through this year, like a champ, from which she’s still recovering. Then there are the countless times I’ve been pinged about other people’s disease diagnoses (including a family member’s surprising stage 4 cancer reveal), financial struggles, or out-of-the-blue catastrophes like a friend of my wife’s brother dropping dead at a fairly young age without warning.    

The Bible may say, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad” (Ecc. 7:3), but that’s hard to embrace sometimes. Heck, let’s be real, pretty much all the time.

But the Greek philosopher Epicurus thought he had an answer for accepting these kinds of difficulties, which he presented as his four-part cure for anxiety (called the tetrapharmakos).

Step one: forget God and/or gods. Fear and punishment are associated with them, so good riddance. Step two: Don’t fear death. No gods mean no fear after death, where you will be just like before you were born. Step three: Don’t worry about pain. It will either subside or kill you, and if it does, see step 2. Step four: Only go after the very basics in life; stiff-arm any other desire because they lead to fruitless pursuits.

I remember telling my wife about Epicurus’ solution when I first learned about it in a pool we were in at a Florida resort. The guy next to us in the pool remarked, “Sounds right to me!” and swam off. Evidently, he was oblivious to the fact that he had violated step 4.

You can go down the Epicurus route if you like (many Buddhists try), but in the end, you’ll find it has historically failed to address suffering that is profound, morally charged, rooted in injustice, unavoidable, or tied to responsibility. And you’ll still be asking the question, Why? Why me? Why this?

As Christians, we know the Bible says that suffering is morally meaningful, spiritually significant, and ultimately redemptive because God is involved in history. But admit it, you and still get bugged with the why question.

Dr Ronald Dunn delivers some honesty in this area when he writes, “I think this is the hardest part of all. You can take just about anything, if you know why. Everywhere I go, every meeting, I’m asked — Why? … I’m going to tell you something: God will very seldom answer your question of “why.” It is not that there are no answers, it’s just that you and I probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend the answer if God were to tell us, and besides that, we have to learn to trust Him without knowing why … What we’re usually doing is saying, ‘Lord explain yourself’, calling God into account.”

Rather than putting God in the dock, we’re instead supposed to remember the doctrine of God’s providence. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, when broken down into its Latin parts of video “to see” and pro “before,” it means “to see beforehand.” And no, this isn’t the prescient view of God’s foreknowledge that says He looks down through time and sees what’s going to happen. That has God learning something, which is a wee bit heretical.

Instead, whereas we plan beforehand, not knowing what is going to happen, God has planned everything ahead of time for us, and because He is sovereign, everything will come to pass as He purposed.

As Job said, “For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind” (Job 23:14).

When it comes to the tough times we experience, in his book, Behind a Frowning Providence, Scottish minister John J. Murray tells us, “There are favorable or smiling providences and there are what appear to be dark, cross or frowning providences.” The former we love; the latter is where the tough sledding occurs.

If we’re to be honest, when the sucker punches come rolling in, we’re usually more anxious to get rid of the problem than we are to find the purpose of God in it. True?

But Murray shows how we can get better at that by reminding us of four important aspects of God’s providence, including the ones where the smile seems turned upside down.  

First, because God is perfect, the plan He has for us is perfect as well. It may not appear that way sometimes, but it is and will ultimately lead to the greater glory of God.

Next, His plan is exhaustive, includes everything, all of which is under His control. It extends down to the smallest and most casual things where “The very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matt. 10:30).

Third, His plan is for our ultimate good — “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

Lastly, sometimes His plan is secret. Occasionally, we see the reasons early. Other times, it may take longer.

We may think, like Job, our life has become useless and then, in a flash, find out otherwise. Or we wait 22 years like Joseph did after he was thrown into the pit by his brothers to discover the reason why.

Or we don’t find out in his life at all.

Whether we get answers or not, we need to remember that “for now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12) and have faith that God alone knows what is going to happen in advance because He has purposed it all, even while hiding it from us until it happens.

In my case, I’ll be honest and say I’m wondering with some trepidation if 2026 will be better or worse for my family and close friends than 2025. When I start feeling anxious about that, I’ll be looking to a portion of a poem (Light Shining Out of Darkness) penned by English poet and Anglican hymn writer William Cowper that reminds all of us about the trust we need to maintain in our God, who has planned each of our days with ultimately good purposes:

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head. 

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face. 

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev’ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.