Affirming our Faith During Trials

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers {various} temptations {trials}; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience…”

Trials are a part of life.  MacArthur defines trials this way:    Something that breaks the pattern of peace, comfort, joy, or happiness in someone’s life.   Trials can be big or small. They can range from news of a debilitating illness to going into the laundry room and finding your washing machine's last leg just broke.    Trials also come in multiples (notice the verse says 'various' trials); and it is not uncommon to have one big trial with lots of little trials coming at you at the same time.  

Anything that takes you outside your comfort zone and causes you distress is a trial!  If you are not in the middle of a trial now – you have been – you will be.    

  

There is something I have found to be so helpful to me when it seems the trials could overtake me.  In fact, just last week, I was met by several trials and found my spirit and my emotional state burdened down with several problems.  As I was working, I realized that I needed to stop focusing on all the problems and trials and focus instead on bedrock truths that I know to be true. I have done this many times -   I call it affirming my faith during times of trials. 

In the Christian life there are many things that we believe; but there are some truths that are foundational and ground us spiritually as we meditate upon them. They are basic truths we know to be true and it is good to remind ourselves of them when trials (no matter how big or how small) come into our lives.    These are the truths we must chose to focus on during times when we are burdened down with the cares of this life.   It is of utmost importance that we move from a horizontal (earthly) view of our trials to a vertical (eternal) view.

  Here are the truths I use to affirm my faith:

1.  God Loves Me

Satan loves to see Christians doubt the love God has for them; and Satan loves to use times of trials to lie to us and say that if God really loved us we would not be experiencing what we are up against.  This lie of Satan slips up many Christians – and it is just that -  a lie!  Calvary alone proves God loves us.  If there was no other example of God’s love – Calvary would be enough.     Perhaps this is my favorite verse when I meditate upon the love God has for me:

Isaiah 49:16 – “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands…”

2.  God is Always (and Only) Good

God cannot be evil.  God cannot act selfishly or out of hatred.  He is good.  Even when life is bad and we see bad things happening around us we can know that is because we live in a fallen world – in a world that has heartache because of sin and the fall.  However, dark this word can be – it does not change the goodness of God.   When we take time to look, we can see each day God’s goodness to us.  In the midst of difficult situations it is good for us to take the time to remember how good God is and has been to us. 

“It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning:  great is thy faithfulness.”  (Lam 3:22,23)

Photo Credit:  Rachel Spurgeon

3.  God Will Never Leave Me

There is no trail so dark that God is not there with us. As Christians, we face nothing alone!   This is a comfort to know – He is always there.  This is also a truth to cling to in the midst of our trial.

He is there  - when things are difficult and we feel our hearts would break.  
He is there - when we don’t know what to do.  
He is there  - when it feels like He is not there. 

You want something to hang on to?  GOD NEVER LEAVES YOU.  If you feel like He has – you can rest assured that your feelings are wrong and the Bible is true. 

 Take this statement by faith – “I will never leave thee – nor forsake thee.”  (Sometimes that verse has to be believed in spite of our feelings!) 

4.  God’s grace is Sufficient for Anything I encounter in my Life

No trial can trump God’s grace.   God’s grace is His power given to me to encounter the difficulties I face in my life.   So when something is too hard for me – it’s not too hard for God.  What an amazing gift God has given us as Christians -  the ability to ask for His strength and His grace in any situation we encounter .  I love what Christ said to Paul as he encountered weakness and a deep trial in his life:

“And He said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ 

I love Paul’s response to Christ’s statement to him:  “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me..  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake” for when I am weak, then am I strong.”   

In the middle of the weakness – that is where you will find God’s grace!

5. God has brought others through trials like Mine

Satan would like nothing more than to have you think that you are alone.  Satan loves to isolate.  It is a comfort to know that other Christians have walked through trials similar to mine.   What an encouragement to know that I am not alone in my trial!   Whatever you are in the middle of right now – someone else has been there too. 

Cancer?
Vehicle problems?

Financial difficulties?
Children who cant get along?

Betrayal?
Housework that seems overwhelming?

Loneliness?
Unplanned pregnancy?

Grief? 

You can take comfort in knowing you are not alone.  Scripture records the lives of many who have gone through dark times, books shelves can be filled with books on missionaries and other Christians who have gone through trials in their lives.   Don’t be afraid to look for others who have gone through trials – you will find comfort.  Don’t forget to share about your trials with others in the future.  We all need to know we are not alone in our suffering and trials.  (ICor 10:13)

6.  Trials Have the Ability to Give us a Spiritual Perspective

For a Christian, our life and the trials of life are more than meet the eye.  There is another realm that we cannot see that exists right now as we live our life in the day to day.   When I grasped this it completely changed the way I was looking at a trial that had plagued me with despair for years.  Here are the verses that the Holy Spirit used to change my perspective on my trial:

“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.” (Emphasis mine)

I had gone through a deep heart wrenching trial and every time I would think about it I would think about how difficult it was and how sad it had made me.  I thought about the tragedy of the trial.   Then when I read these verses I realized I was only seeing the “things that were seen” and I was failing to see  the eternal things.   It was like the Holy Spirit put on some spiritual glasses and gave me HOPE that my trial had eternal value.    Don’t just see your trial from an earthly perspective – that is temporary.  I challenge you to seek an eternal viewpoint.  (Romans 8 in a wonderful chapter to read and reread during times of trials.) 

Satan loves to see a Christian defeated by the trials life brings her way.    We don’t have to be defeated!  It is amazing to realize that the trials we encounter in this life can actually deepen our faith and affirm the very things we believe about God! 

Can I challenge you to allow these truths to affirm your faith in your God?  He is doing something through the trials that you are walking through at this time!  How wonderful it is when the very things that Satan would love to see trip us up and discourage us in our walk with God actually has the opposite effect!  Trials can BUILD and STRENGTHEN our faith in God!    Allow the trial you are in the middle of right now affirm your faith and deepen your walk with God. 

Blessings,

~Martie