These Bible verses for faith during difficult times are for seasons when the ground feels unsteady and answers seem slow. They remind you that God is a refuge, that his strength meets weakness, and that he has promised never to leave you. Read them quietly, hold on to one at a time, and let them keep your hope anchored in him.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
Psalms 46:1-3 (KJV)
Even if the earth shakes and the mountains fall into the sea, God remains a refuge and very present help.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31 (KJV)
God gives power to the faint, and those who wait on him find their strength renewed.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
Psalms 42:11 (KJV)
The psalmist speaks to his own downcast soul and tells it to hope in God, whom he will yet praise.
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Joshua 1:9 (KJV)
Courage in hard times rests on this promise that the Lord goes with his people wherever they go.
The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Psalms 18:2 (KJV)
David piles up pictures of safety, calling God his rock, fortress, deliverer and strength.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (KJV)
Paul calls affliction light and brief compared with eternal glory, and urges looking at what is unseen.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Psalms 91:1-2 (KJV)
Dwelling in the shelter of the Most High, the believer can say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Isaiah 26:3 (KJV)
A steady mind fixed on God is kept in perfect peace, even when circumstances are unsettled.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 14:27 (KJV)
Jesus leaves his own peace with his followers and tells them not to let their hearts be troubled or afraid.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (KJV)
Faith in difficult times clings to the promise that God works all things together for good for those who love him.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Psalms 121:7-8 (KJV)
The Lord will preserve your soul and watch over your going out and coming in, now and always.
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 (KJV)
Rather than being consumed by worry, bring every request to God with thanks and receive his guarding peace.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
Lamentations 3:25-26 (KJV)
God is good to those who wait for him, and it is good to hope quietly for his salvation.
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
Psalms 73:26 (KJV)
When body and heart fail, God remains the strength of the heart and a portion forever.
Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.
Micah 7:8 (KJV)
Though fallen and sitting in darkness, the prophet declares that he will rise and the Lord will be his light.
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
Hebrews 13:5-6 (KJV)
God has promised never to leave or forsake us, so believers can boldly say the Lord is their helper.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.
Psalms 62:1-2 (KJV)
David waits quietly on God alone, trusting him as his rock and salvation so he will not be greatly moved.
In difficult times it is easy to feel too tired to read much Scripture. Start small. Choose a single verse like Psalms 46:1 or Hebrews 13:5 and read it several times a day. Write it on a note by your bed or set it as a reminder on your phone so God’s promise is the first and last thing you think about.
Use the verses as a pattern for honest prayer. In Psalms 42:11 the writer admits his soul is cast down, then tells himself to hope in God. You can do the same: tell the Lord exactly how you feel, then pray one promise back to him. Philippians 4:6-7 invites you to name each worry with thanksgiving and leave it with him.
Reach out to others as well. Ask a friend or your church to pray with you, and share a verse that has helped you. If you are dealing with ongoing stress, grief or health concerns, talking with a pastor, counselor or doctor is a wise and faithful step. God often carries us through hard times with the help of his people.
Romans 5:3-4 works well prayed by naming your current difficulty, asking to see the character it is producing even now.
Bible Verses About Walking by Faith and Bible Verses About Broken Relationships pick up threads that run through these verses.
Scripture quotations follow the King James Version; Blue Letter Bible lets you read each one alongside its chapter.
Readers of this page often go on to Bible Verses For Spiritual Healing or Bible Verses For God's Plan.
Some of the same ground is covered in Bible Verses For Forgiveness and Bible Verses For Heaven.
You might also turn to Bible Verses For Angels and Protection and Bible Verses For God's Grace.
For a related angle, see Bible Verses For Spiritual Growth or Bible Verses About Spiritual Growth.
If the KJV wording feels unfamiliar, Bible Gateway lets you set it beside a modern translation.
Bible Hub offers commentary and cross-references for each verse.
Return to this verse throughout your difficult season, not only at its end.
These verses were never meant to sit on a page as decoration \u2014 they’re meant to shape how you actually respond the next time you’re holding onto faith by a thread through this particular season.
You don’t need polished or formal language for it \u2014 an honest, plainly worded sentence is enough, something as simple as telling God directly for enough faith to get through today, without needing to solve the whole season at once.
Elijah had just seen fire fall from heaven on Mount Carmel, yet one threat from Jezebel sent him running for his life (1 Kings 19). He went a day’s journey into the wilderness, sat under a juniper tree and asked to die: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life.” James 5:17 reminds us that Elijah was “a man subject to like passions as we are.” Great faith yesterday does not make a person immune to collapse today.
What God did next is deeply practical. He did not scold Elijah or hand him a lecture. An angel touched him and said, “Arise and eat,” and there was bread baked on coals and a jar of water. Elijah slept again, and the angel came a second time, saying the journey was too great for him (1 Kings 19:5-7). Sometimes the most spiritual next step in a hard season is a meal, a glass of water and a night of sleep.
Only after Elijah was rested did the Lord speak to him, not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). God corrected his belief that he was completely alone by telling him of seven thousand in Israel who had stayed faithful, and he gave him a companion in Elisha. Elijah’s story puts flesh on many Bible verses for faith during difficult times: God meets the body’s needs, speaks gently, and reminds us we are not the only ones still standing.
If you recognize yourself in Elijah, take his story as permission to rest. Turn one of these Bible verses for faith during difficult times into a bedtime prayer, eat a proper meal, and tell someone how low you feel. Exhaustion makes every fear look larger than it is. When discouragement lingers for weeks, a pastor, counselor or doctor can help you find your footing again, much as God sent Elisha to walk beside Elijah.
When a family faces a job loss, an illness or a move, children notice more than adults think. They need simple truth, not every detail. Deuteronomy 6:7 pictures parents talking about God’s words “when thou sittest in thine house” and “when thou walkest by the way,” which suggests that faith is passed on in ordinary moments. A car ride or bedtime can be the right setting for a short, honest conversation about what is happening and who God is.
Short verses work best. Among the Bible verses for faith during difficult times that children can memorize quickly, Psalm 56:3 is a favorite: “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” First Peter 5:7 tells them to cast all their care on God, “for he careth for you.” Deuteronomy 31:8 promises that the Lord “will not fail thee, neither forsake thee.” Choose one verse for the week, say it together at breakfast, and ask your child to remind you of it when you seem worried.
Let children see you pray honestly, including prayers that admit you do not know how things will turn out. Invite them to add their own words, even if the prayer is one sentence long. Draw or write the verse on a card for their room. Children who learn Scripture in a family’s hard season often carry those same words into their own adult trials. Kept short and repeated often, the verses give young hearts something steady to hold while routines change.
It is natural to want to send a verse the moment a friend shares bad news. Scripture itself urges care in how we do it. Proverbs 25:20 compares singing songs to a heavy heart to pouring vinegar on a wound, and Job’s friends did best in the seven days they simply sat with him in silence (Job 2:13). Before quoting any verse, listen, ask how your friend is really doing, and follow Romans 12:15: “weep with them that weep.”
When the moment is right, offer one verse rather than a long list. Pick a verse that matches what they have told you. A friend who feels abandoned may need Hebrews 13:5; a friend who is worn out may need Isaiah 40:29-31. Send it with a line such as “This one has helped me; I’m praying it for you today,” and do not expect a reply. Not every verse fits every heartache, so never use a verse to explain away someone’s pain or hurry their grief along.
Faith is often strengthened by practical love that makes the promises visible. Galatians 6:2 tells believers to bear one another’s burdens, which might mean a meal, a ride to an appointment or a standing weekly phone call. Keep praying for them after the first week, when most people drift away. Following up in a month with the same Bible verses for faith during difficult times, and a simple question about how they are holding up, can mean more than anything you said at the start. For verses focused on inner calm, share these verses for finding peace in difficult times.
This prayer weaves several Bible verses for faith during difficult times into words you can pray slowly, pausing where a line meets your own situation. Change any phrase to fit your circumstances, and add names, places and details as you go. Praying Scripture this way helps when your own words run out, and it keeps your requests anchored in what God has actually promised.
Lord, you are my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). Right now I feel weak, and I do not know how this will end. You have said you give power to the faint, so I ask for strength for today, not for the whole season at once. I bring you this worry by name, and I thank you that you hear me (Philippians 4:6).
When my heart is cast down, teach me to hope in you (Psalm 42:11). Keep my mind stayed on you so that your peace can guard me (Isaiah 26:3). Remind me that you will never leave me nor forsake me (Hebrews 13:5), even on the days I cannot feel you near. Send the right people alongside me, and make me willing to accept their help. I trust you to work this for good, as you have promised to those who love you (Romans 8:28). In Jesus’ name, amen.
If you pray this each morning for a week, notice which line you keep returning to. That line may be the promise God is pressing into your heart. Write it down and keep it where you will see it, perhaps beside the other passages you have been reading. Adding these verses for strength in difficult times to your prayers can give you fresh words when the old ones feel worn.
Moses had been dead for a few weeks when the LORD spoke to Joshua. Think about where that left him. The man who had led a nation whose fighting men alone numbered over six hundred thousand (Numbers 1:46) was buried somewhere in Moab, the Jordan was in flood, and the cities across it had walls. Joshua had been Moses’ assistant since youth, which is not the same as being the leader. Now the whole thing was his.
The command comes in a rush: “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9). Look at the question inside it. God asks, in effect, whether He has not already said this. Courage here is obedience to something already spoken, and the reason for it is a presence, not a personality trait. Joshua is not told he is naturally brave. He is told who is going with him.
Many of us are handed a role we did not ask for, a spouse’s illness, a parent’s finances, a business that sits suddenly on our shoulders. The verse does not shrink the task. It changes the company. Joshua went on to send two spies, prepare the people, and cross the river on dry ground (Joshua 3), one practical step after another. If you are standing on your own riverbank, the next step is probably smaller than the whole crossing, and it is allowed to be small.
Isaiah 40 was addressed to people who had lost nearly everything in the Babylonian exile, and its famous ending is often quoted on its own: “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). The Hebrew verb for wait is often linked by teachers with the idea of a cord twisted together from many strands. Waiting, then, is less a sitting-around than a binding of yourself to God, thread by thread.
Read the order of that verse closely. Soaring comes first, then running, then simply walking and not fainting. It would be natural to expect the list to climb toward the most impressive thing. It ends with the plain one. In a long hard season, the promise may not be a spectacular lift but the ability to keep putting one foot in front of another on a Wednesday afternoon when nobody is watching.
The verses just before it speak of the youths who grow weary and the young men who fall (Isaiah 40:30). Even the strong run out. That is a relief for anyone who is embarrassed by their own tiredness. If you feel frayed, it may help to name one thing that holds you to God this week, a morning prayer, a hymn, a weekly meal with a friend who prays. Those are the strands. You do not need a thick rope today, only a few that are still pulling.
Hebrews 13:5 is often pulled out of its setting and read as a general comfort, but its first readers had real losses. Earlier the writer reminds them that they had endured a great fight of afflictions, that they had been made a spectacle, and that they “took joyfully the spoiling of your goods” (Hebrews 10:32-34). Some had been jailed. Some had watched their homes and belongings taken. When the writer says what he does about money, he is speaking to people who knew exactly what it cost to have little.
The text reads, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). Notice the reason offered. It is not that possessions do not matter. It is that a promise has been made which cannot be repossessed. The writer quotes the same assurance God gave Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5) and then draws the confident conclusion in the next verse that we may boldly say the Lord is our helper.
This does not forbid planning, budgeting or asking for help when a paycheck stops. Elsewhere the Bible praises diligence. What the verse addresses is the grip of fear that tells us we are only safe if the account stays full. If money worries are keeping you up, write down the one decision that is actually yours to make today, and make it. For debts, benefits or legal pressure, a trustworthy advisor or a church benevolence team can do far more than worry can.
Psalm 18 carries a heading saying David wrote it after the LORD delivered him from the hand of his enemies and from the hand of Saul. For years before that, he lived as a fugitive in caves and rocky hill country, sleeping wherever Saul’s soldiers were not. Rock was not a poetic idea to him. It was the thing that stood between him and a spear. So when he writes, “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower” (Psalm 18:2), he is stacking up pictures from a hunted man’s daily life.
Count the images: rock, fortress, buckler, high tower. Each one is a place or object you use when something is coming at you. None is a feeling. That is worth sitting with, because in a hard season we often wait to feel safe before we trust, as if the feeling were the shelter. David’s list describes things you can lean on whether or not your pulse has slowed down.
If you were to write your own list, what would it sound like? A hospice nurse might say the LORD is a night light in a long hallway. A person facing a lawsuit might say a locked door and a steady hand. They need not be elegant. The point of the psalm is that God is concrete enough to run to. If panic is strong, run to a human shelter as well, such as a counselor, a doctor or a friend who will pick up the phone, and let the Lord’s help come through them.
John 14 is spoken on the night Jesus was arrested. The disciples have just heard that one of them will betray Him, that Peter will deny Him, and that He is going away. Over supper their world was coming apart. It is here, and not on a quiet mountainside, that He says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).
Notice what He does not say. He does not say that nothing bad is about to happen, because He has just told them otherwise. He gives something that can exist alongside what is coming. The word left suggests a bequest, the sort of thing a person hands over before leaving. A few hours later it was tested in a garden, a courtyard and a trial, and the disciples scattered. The peace was still on offer after they returned.
That matters for anyone who has been told to just calm down and found they could not. This peace is a gift received, not a mood produced. A small habit helps. When your thoughts begin to race, say the verse once, slowly, and add a sentence of your own: this is what I am afraid of, and I am handing it to You. Then do the next ordinary thing. If anxiety is constant, interfering with sleep, work or relationships, speaking with a doctor or counselor is a sensible companion to prayer.
Other collections you may find useful: Bible Verses About Faith During Difficult Times, Bible Verses About Prayer in Difficult Times, Bible Verses For Faith in Hard Times, Bible Verses For Difficult Times and Bible Verses For Peace in Difficult Times.
To study these verses in more depth, try Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools.
In difficult times it is easy to feel too tired to read much Scripture. Start small. Choose a single verse like Psalms 46:1 or Hebrews 13:5 and read it several times a day.
This page brings together 20 King James Version references about faith During Difficult Times, drawn from 12 different books of the Bible.
Yes. The verses about faith During Difficult Times gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Psalms 46:1 and Hebrews 13:5.
Psalms 46:1 is one of the verses about faith During Difficult Times referenced in this collection, alongside Hebrews 13:5.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including Psalms 46:1, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
