Difficulties and trials… don’t you get tired of them?
I do.
I have learned through my many trials that there is much more I need to learn. And that there is much more to share with other people.
The book of James begins with a talk on trials:
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2-4, The Message).
I like the wording here, “…your faith-life is forced into the open…” How often do we hide our “faith-life”? God will easily draw that life out of us through a time of trial. What if we just lived naturally the faith-filled life all the time in obedience – would God have to send us through so many trials?
Sometimes trials come just because there is something God really wants to teach us.
Several years ago I began going through a tough time of testing… it was at the beginning of what seemed to be about three years of testing and trial. At the very beginning, I recall one of my friends, a pastor non-the-less, ask me, “What sin are you committing to cause this trial?”
Huh?
Why would God choose trials as a classroom?
You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people. My Utmost for His Highest, June 25.
There are hurting people all around us who experience trials of all sorts. Many of these people do not have the hope of Jesus Christ… how are they going to make it through unless we go to them and become nourishment for their souls?
