A friend of mine lost his job some months ago, and not because of anything he did wrong. A false allegation had been raised against him, a plot he had no part in, yet it cost him his position. For most people, that kind of news would be the beginning of weeks, maybe months, of depression, anger, and endless complaining to anyone who would listen. But my friend did something different. Instead of drowning in frustration or running from person to person hoping someone could fix it for him, he channelled his anger into prayer. He decided that if God was truly who he claimed to be in his life, then this was the moment to prove it, not in word, but in how he responded.
I remember checking in on him during that period, half expecting to hear the usual mix of anger and self pity that most people carry after a sudden job loss. Instead, he sounded surprisingly steady. He wasn’t pretending the situation didn’t hurt, it clearly did, but he kept saying something along the lines of, this is between me and God now, I’ve said what I needed to say to the people involved, the rest is His to handle. That posture stayed with me long after the situation resolved itself, because it wasn’t denial, it was a deliberate decision about where he was placing his dependence.
Within three months, he was recalled back to the same job, and not just recalled, he was promoted. The company came back to apologize when the truth of the false allegation came to light. What looked like a permanent setback turned out to be a temporary interruption, and the very people who let him go were the ones who had to make things right. I share this story because it captures something I’ve come to believe deeply: in times of crisis, the best person to run to is not a friend, not a connection, not even the most capable human being you know. The best person to run to is God.
The Problem With Depending on People
A lot of times, when people are faced with a crisis, their first instinct is to depend on those they feel can help them. It’s a natural response, we reach for whoever seems closest to a solution, whoever has the connections, the resources, or the influence to make our problem disappear. But here’s what experience has taught many of us the hard way: those same people often disappoint us. Sometimes it’s because they simply aren’t capable of doing what we hoped they could do, no matter how much we believed in their ability. Other times, and this is the harder truth, it’s because they simply don’t want to help, even when they could.
This isn’t said to make you bitter toward people or to stop trusting anyone at all. People still have their place, and God often uses people to bring answers to our prayers. But there’s a difference between using people as instruments God can work through, and depending on people as your ultimate source of help. When people become your ultimate hope, their failure to come through will crush you. When God is your ultimate hope, people become simply one of the many ways He might choose to answer you, and if they fail, your hope doesn’t fail with them.
One scripture that comes to mind whenever I think about this is Psalm 20:7, which says, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” In ancient times, chariots and horses represented military strength, wealth, and human power, the very things people leaned on for security. But the psalmist made a clear distinction. While others were placing their confidence in visible strength, he was choosing to place his confidence in the name of the Lord. That same choice is available to you today, whether your version of chariots and horses is a certain relationship, a certain job, a certain amount of money, or a certain person you’ve been counting on to rescue you.
The Story of Hezekiah and Sennacherib
There’s another story that has shaped how I think about crisis, and it’s the account of King Hezekiah and Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib had already conquered many nations, and his armies were a genuine threat, powerful, intimidating, and seemingly unstoppable. He sent a message to Hezekiah, threatening to do to Jerusalem what he had done to every other nation that stood in his way, mocking the idea that Hezekiah’s God could save him the way other gods had failed to save other kings.
Hezekiah didn’t respond by gathering more soldiers or negotiating a compromise. He took the letter, went into the temple, and spread it out before the Lord in prayer. He didn’t pretend the threat wasn’t real, he acknowledged it fully, but he brought it to the only one he believed could actually handle it. And God answered. Through the prophet Isaiah, God declared that Sennacherib would not enter the city, that he would go back the way he came, and that he would fall by the sword in his own land. Every part of that word came to pass. Sennacherib’s army was defeated, and he returned home, only to be killed by his own sons in the house of his own god.
What strikes me most about this story is that Hezekiah faced a threat far bigger than his own strength could handle. There was no clever political move, no borrowed army, no last minute alliance that saved Jerusalem. It was God, responding to a king who brought his impossible situation to the only one capable of resolving it. If God could handle a threat that size for Hezekiah, your crisis, whatever it looks like right now, a job situation, a health scare, a broken relationship, a financial pressure, is not too big for Him either.
It’s also worth noting what Hezekiah didn’t do in that moment. He didn’t call an emergency meeting of his advisors to strategize a military response before he prayed. He didn’t send a diplomatic message back to Sennacherib trying to negotiate terms. His very first move was to take the threat straight to God, and only afterward did the answer come through the prophet Isaiah. The order mattered. Prayer came before strategy, not after strategy had already failed. That’s a pattern worth paying attention to the next time a crisis lands on your desk, in your inbox, or in a phone call you weren’t expecting.
What It Looks Like to Depend on God in Crisis
If you’re in the middle of a crisis right now, or you know one is likely coming, here’s what it practically looks like to make God your first option instead of your last resort.
1. Pray to God, seek His guidance and counsel
Before you run to anyone else, run to God first. Prayer is not a last resort you turn to after every human option has failed, it should be the first place you go the moment trouble shows up. Bring the situation to Him honestly, the same way Hezekiah spread the letter before the Lord. Don’t hide the size of the problem or pretend it’s smaller than it is, lay it all out and ask for His guidance and counsel on what to do next.
2. Be patient
This is often the hardest part, because crisis naturally makes us want an immediate resolution. But my friend didn’t get his job back the same week he lost it, it took three months. Patience doesn’t mean doing nothing, it means trusting that God’s timing, even when it doesn’t match your urgency, is not late. Some answers come instantly, others unfold over weeks or months, but patience keeps you anchored while you wait, instead of making decisions out of panic that you’ll later regret.
3. Take action as inspired by God
Depending on God doesn’t mean sitting back and doing absolutely nothing while you wait for a miracle to fall from the sky. It means staying sensitive to whatever direction He gives you, and acting on it when it comes. Sometimes that direction will be to keep quiet and let things play out. Other times it will be to have a specific conversation, to write something, to make a call, to take a step you wouldn’t have taken on your own. The key is that the action comes from what you sense God is leading you to do, not from fear driven scrambling to fix things entirely on your own strength.
4. See God as your only option and wait on Him like your life depends on it
Sometimes you won’t know exactly how God is going to answer you, and that uncertainty can be uncomfortable. But the posture that matters most is deciding, ahead of time, that God is your only real option, not one option among many, not a backup plan if people fail you, but the option. Wait on Him the way you would wait if your very life depended on it, because in more ways than we often realize, it actually does. Every job, every relationship, every dollar, every breath you take is ultimately sustained by Him, whether we acknowledge it daily or not.
- Let your crisis strengthen your worship, not weaken it
There’s a temptation in crisis to pull away from God rather than draw closer, especially when the situation looks unfair or when the wait feels unbearably long. But some of the deepest moments of worship in scripture happened in the middle of a crisis, not after it was resolved. Hezekiah worshipped before the outcome was known, spreading the letter before the Lord in faith, not after Sennacherib had already been defeated. Let your current crisis push you toward God in worship and gratitude for who He already is, rather than pulling you away from Him while you wait to see what He’ll do.
6. Guard your words while you wait
What you say about your situation while you’re still in the middle of it matters more than most people realize. Constant complaining, speaking hopeless words over your circumstances, or declaring defeat before the situation has even played out can shape your own posture in ways that work against you. This doesn’t mean pretending the problem doesn’t exist, it means choosing to speak in agreement with what you’re asking God for, rather than speaking in agreement with your fear. My friend could have spent those three months telling everyone how unfairly he’d been treated and how hopeless things looked. Instead, he chose a different posture, and it shaped how he carried himself through the entire process.
Why This Matters More Than It Seems
It’s easy to nod along with all of this in theory and still default to panic mode the moment real crisis hits. That’s normal, and it doesn’t mean your faith is weak, it simply means you’re human. But the more you practice running to God first, the more natural it becomes, the same way any habit becomes easier with repetition. Each time you choose to pray before you panic, to wait before you force an outcome, to trust before you manipulate a situation into shape yourself, you’re building a track record with God, one that strengthens your confidence in Him the next time trouble comes knocking, and it will come again, because that is simply the nature of life on this side of eternity.
My friend’s story didn’t end with him just getting his job back. It ended with an apology from the very people who wronged him, and a promotion he hadn’t even been chasing when the crisis started. That’s often how God works, He doesn’t just resolve the crisis, He tends to restore what was taken and sometimes adds beyond what was originally there. Hezekiah didn’t just survive Sennacherib’s threat, he watched the very army that threatened to destroy him be dealt with completely, in a way only God could have orchestrated.
A Final Word
If you’re in a season of crisis right now, whatever shape it has taken in your life, I want to encourage you to shift where you’re placing your hope. Stop running first to the people you think can fix it, and start running first to God. Pray honestly, be patient even when the timeline feels unbearable, take action only as He leads you, and hold onto Him like your life depends on it, because it truly does. The same God who kept Sennacherib out of Jerusalem, and the same God who turned my friend’s setback into a promotion, is still working the same way today. Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
You may not know today exactly how your situation will turn around, and that’s alright. Hezekiah didn’t know the specific way his deliverance would come until Isaiah brought him the word. My friend didn’t know it would take exactly three months, or that a promotion would come alongside his reinstatement. None of us are required to know the how in advance, we are simply required to trust the one who does. That trust is what carries you through the waiting without falling apart, and it’s what positions you to receive the answer with gratitude rather than bitterness when it finally comes.
Conclusion
Crisis has a way of revealing exactly where our trust has really been placed all along. When people disappoint you, and at some point they will, it isn’t a sign that all hope is lost, it’s simply an invitation to redirect your dependence to the one source that has never failed and never will. Pray first, be patient, act only as inspired, and hold onto God like everything depends on it, because it does. Whatever crisis you’re facing today, bring it to Him the way Hezekiah brought his letter, and the way my friend brought his anger and turned it into prayer, and trust that the same God who answered them is more than able to answer you too.
