{"id":25291,"date":"2025-06-03T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291"},"modified":"2025-05-26T07:59:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T11:59:53","slug":"faith-in-the-pit-stand-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2025\/06\/faith-in-the-pit-stand-strong.html","title":{"rendered":"Faith In the Pit: Stand Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2025\/05\/paragraph-3213670_1280.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-25303\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2025\/05\/paragraph-3213670_1280.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Life gets heavy. Families fracture. Relationships break. Trust gets betrayed. Anger, violence, divorce\u2014these things pile up, and before long, we start to wonder,\u00a0<em>What&#8217;s the point?<\/em>\u00a0Discouragement whispers,\u00a0<em>Just give up. There\u2019s too much against you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But then there&#8217;s Daniel.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0Daniel 6, we find someone who understood discouragement\u2014someone who was literally thrown into a pit and yet stood firm in his faith.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel wasn\u2019t just a random victim. He had found favor with the king, rising to a place of influence and responsibility. But that favor brought jealousy. His enemies couldn&#8217;t find any fault in his work, so they went after his faith. They created a law that made prayer illegal, knowing Daniel wouldn\u2019t stop seeking God.<\/p>\n<p>And he didn\u2019t.<br \/>\nDaniel didn\u2019t hide. He didn\u2019t compromise. He kept praying, just as he always had\u2014three times a day, windows open, heart wide.<\/p>\n<p>When Daniel was thrown into the lions&#8217; den, he didn\u2019t know what would happen. But he trusted the One who did. His faith wasn\u2019t based on whether God would\u00a0<em>rescue<\/em>\u00a0him. His faith was grounded in the belief that God was\u00a0<em>with<\/em>\u00a0him\u2014whether the lions&#8217; mouths were shut or not.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s real faith.<br \/>\nFaith with legs.<br \/>\nFaith that says:\u00a0<em>\u201cEven in the pit, I believe God is still good.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>What Daniel Teaches Us About Resilience<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Prayer is not weakness\u2014it\u2019s where strength is born.<\/strong><br \/>\nDaniel didn\u2019t react in panic; he turned to prayer. He knew his source of peace, and he stayed connected to it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Faith doesn\u2019t always prevent the pit\u2014but it sustains you through it.<\/strong><br \/>\nSometimes God delivers us\u00a0<em>from<\/em>\u00a0the lions; other times He walks with us\u00a0<em>through<\/em>\u00a0the den.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The outcome isn&#8217;t ours to control\u2014but our trust is.<\/strong><br \/>\nDaniel left the results in God\u2019s hands. That\u2019s where resilience begins: surrendering control but never letting go of hope.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Finding Hope in Your \u201cLion\u2019s Den\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Maybe your \u201cpit\u201d isn\u2019t full of lions, but it\u2019s full of fear, disappointment, or betrayal. Maybe your life feels like winter\u2014cold, stripped, lifeless. But even in winter, the seeds of spring are forming.<\/p>\n<p><em>Spring reminds me that even when everything looks dead, new life is coming.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And so does faith.<\/p>\n<p>Faith sees the unseen. It remembers that God is still working, even when the situation says otherwise. Like Daniel, we trust that God is present\u2014<em>in the pain, in the silence, even in the pit.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Can You Say This Today?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Blessed be the name of the Lord, who gives and takes away.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0(Job 1:21)<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not easy. But this is the kind of faith that anchors us when everything else is shifting. A faith that says:<\/p>\n<p><em>Even if I don\u2019t see the way out, I\u2019ll trust the One who sees me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So if you&#8217;re discouraged, don\u2019t give up.<br \/>\nStand firm.<br \/>\nPray hard.<br \/>\nTrust deeply.<\/p>\n<p>God is with you\u2014even in the pit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life gets heavy. Families fracture. Relationships break. Trust gets betrayed. Anger, violence, divorce\u2014these things pile up, and before long, we start to wonder,\u00a0What&#8217;s the point?\u00a0Discouragement whispers,\u00a0Just give up. There\u2019s too much against you. But then there&#8217;s Daniel. In\u00a0Daniel 6, we find someone who understood discouragement\u2014someone who was literally thrown into a pit and yet stood&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[916],"tags":[3494,2742,8944,729,8947],"class_list":["post-25291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god-relationship","tag-difficult-times","tag-discouraged","tag-discourament","tag-faith","tag-hard-times"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Faith in the pitt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Life gets heavy. Families fracture. Relationships break. Discouragement whispers,\u00a0Just give up. 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There\u2019s too much against you.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-03T12:00:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-26T11:59:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2025\/05\/paragraph-3213670_1280.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Faith in the pitt","description":"Life gets heavy. Families fracture. Relationships break. Discouragement whispers,\u00a0Just give up. 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There\u2019s too much against you.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291","og_site_name":"Doing Life Together","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","article_published_time":"2025-06-03T12:00:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-05-26T11:59:53+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2025\/05\/paragraph-3213670_1280.jpg"}],"author":"Linda Mintle","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@drlindamintle","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291","name":"Faith in the pitt","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=25291#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2025\/05\/paragraph-3213670_1280.jpg","datePublished":"2025-06-03T12:00:33+00:00","dateModified":"2025-05-26T11:59:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/#\/schema\/person\/1e16a9c7332cfcc5b5d89e4ba3a36142"},"description":"Life gets heavy. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. 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