The Trials of Life

Trials are something everyone experiences in their lives. They can enter our lives suddenly without warning and can produce feelings of anxiety, fear, sadness, frustration, and even anger at times. Some trials can become very difficult, frustrating, and even overwhelming. They can even immobilize us, leaving us feeling helpless and like giving up.

I believe trials compel or drive us to look up to the One who is sovereign over all our trials and who is working out our spiritual good (Rom. 8:28). When life is comfortable, we have a tendency to forget God and become self-reliant. But when trials come, they have a way of turning our attention back to the One who is sovereign over our lives and our trials.

James, Jesus’ half-brother, understood this truth. In his letter, in verses 1-4, James reveals that trials are an important part of the believer’s life. He is so convinced of this that he instructs the believers in his letter to, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials” (v.2). 

This makes no sense unless we understand what trials are designed to do in our lives. James reveals their purpose in verses 3-4, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

The purpose of trials according to these verses is to test our faith, strengthen our faith, and produce Christ-likeness. This is why James exhorts the believers in his letter to, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,” (v.2). 

Tony Evans gives an excellent illustration of how God can use the dark times in the life of a believer to accomplish His purposes and produce spiritual good. “A photographer goes into a dark room, where no light can pass through, unless it messes up the negative. The reason he takes it into the dark room, pitch black, is because the photographer’s goal is to turn a negative into a positive. The photographer goes into a dark room in order to take raw material and turn it into a finished product. It’s dark inside there! It’s lonely inside there! But it’s purposeful inside there, because the darkness is designed to get you ready for the light. Not only must they keep it dark, but a lot of times there’s cutting and pasting going on in there, cropping of the pictures going on in there, because a change is about to occur. If God has you in a dark room and there is no light, it’s because he is trying to take a negative and turn it into a positive.” 

We will encounter trials. No one is exempt from trials! They affect all of us, believers, and unbelievers. Trials come in different shapes and sizes and with varying intensity! Some seem manageable while others overwhelm us and crush us leaving us feeling helpless and like we are drowning. 

What we must remember is even though trials involve suffering, loss, and pain they are not meant to spiritually defeat us but to cause us to look up to the One who is sovereign over all our trials and who is working out our spiritual good. This is why we can count it all as joy. God is at work through them testing our faith, strengthening our faith, and conforming us into the image of His dear Son. 

“Those who are bruised much are used much by God!”  Arnold Wry