The testing of your faith: A perspective on trials

James in his epistle has a perspective on trials that we don't immediately see in the natural. He tells us that trials are there to test (and hence strengthen) our faith. To James' Jewish Christian audience, this would be a familiar theme from the old Testament. For example God tested Abraham concerning his son (Genesis 22:1), and the Israelites were tested in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 8:2).

The stated purpose of the long drawn out wilderness experience the Deuteronomy passage refers to, was to humble and test the Israelites so as to know what was in their hearts. Most of us do not know our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9), but our hearts are revealed many times in our response to the trials of life. Israel had blown it at the beginning of the 40 year period of their wanderings. These wanderings would not have been necessary if they had responded to their challenges with faith. We too can save ourselves long drawn out wilderness experiences if we learn to respond to our circumstances in faith. In the end the Lord will have His way with us anyway, and it is surely better to quickly submit rather than to be humbled and then finally, in the end, to come kicking and screaming into acceptance.

I don't pretend that is it easy, in the midst of the trial, our focus tends to be on the trial itself, and the pain we are suffering. Because this is so, we may not immediately recognize that our faith is being tested, nor the value of such testing. When we see that our faith is being tested, and that God has purpose in allowing it, the Christian can perhaps see more clearly that he or she is in fact given a choice.

For many years in my own life all I could see or feel was the pain of my trials. I did not see my circumstances as an opportunity to put my faith in Him, rather I tried to work it all out in my own strength and wisdom. In fact things had to get very much worse before I finally got a hold of the truth being discussed here. Only then did I start to respond in faith to the trials and tribulations that He had allowed. With 20/20 hindsight I am also painfully aware that, like unbelieving Israel, my own unbelief resulted in my family being dragged through the wilderness with me. And I can now say clearly from the School of hard knocks that we need to enter this process of becoming whole (for that is what it is) not only for our own sake, but also for our families and those over whom we have influence.

What I am trying to say here, is that unless or until we start to understand that the trials we encounter are in fact testing our faith, we are unlikely to choose to respond to them in trust and faith, and so by His grace learn to rise above them. We do need His help for this (I do). Someone put it this way. “We need to learn to stop fighting the people and circumstances that God allows in our lives with the purpose of making us more like Him.”

In all kinds of trial, count it all joy

One thing that many people do not seem to understand is that the deeper the trail the greater the potential to enter into the reality of the peace and joy promised to the Christian. It is in the deepest trials that the promises of the Bible are the most relevant and the most empowering. We are told for example “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee (Isaiah 26:3).” We are also promised joy. Here in this command from James we are commanded to rejoice (count it all joy) but joy is also part of the fruit of the Spirit. We are not just talking about a superficial happiness here. In the context of various trials (the very same phrase used in James) Peter speaks of a joy that is too great to be expressed in words. The various translations have it as joy unspeakable, glorious joy or joy so great it is inexpressible (1 Peter 1:6-8). But how are we to experience this, and why is it that the potential for these positive things increases with the difficulty of the trial?

Here is one of the many upside down principles of the Kingdom. When the trial is small we can simply suck it up, we can tell ourselves to get a life. The secular self help literature does this in spades. We are told not to sweat the small stuff, and that it is all small stuff. But it is not small stuff if you lose a child, or if you are abused, and to pretend that this is small stuff is to live outside of reality. Secular self help also tells us that life is a gentle teacher, but it many times it feels more like the school of hard knocks. In particular as the pain and/or difficulties of our circumstances grow, it becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible to rejoice. At this stage the advice given here can be completely incomprehensible. They will think you are mad if you suggest it.

But the person of faith knows that the increasing pain and difficulties bring us to a crossroads, to a choice. Will we choose to trust? Will we choose, in the words of Paul, to believe that somehow (we may not know how) God is actively at work for our good in the trial (Romans 8:28). Will we accept, in the words of Peter, that the testing of our faith is precious, and that it will produce praise honour and glory at the revelation of Christ?

In the midst of my own fiery trial, the Lord put a devotional book into my hand. The title is revealing. It is called “I can't, God can. I think I'll let him.” This is akin to the first couple of steps of any twelve step program. We start by admitting we are powerlessness to rejoice in our suffering, to admit that without His help we cannot do it. The point is that when we fully surrender and cooperate with Him, He makes up for what we cannot do. He even changes our desires (Philippians 2:12,13). It's about coming to the end of ourselves and then choosing to believe.

This is where the depth of the trial is helpful. When the trial gets deep enough, and goes on for long enough we come to the place where we start to understand that with us it is impossible. We start to see the inadequacy of the power of positive thinking alone to bring us out of the desolate pits into which we have fallen. We become desperate, desperate enough to fully surrender, to put our faith money where our mouth is. When we do we find that "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27). This builds our faith so that surrender in the next trial is not quite so difficult. So then it is the depth of our trials that increasingly bring us out of our denial and more and more fully into the embrace of God.

Nobody is saying this is easy, nor that it is instantaneous. We may not be there yet, the trials may not yet have gone deep enough or lasted long enough for us to fully surrender. We may still think we can do it without Him. We need help even here, and we need help as we choose to count it all joy in the midst of it all. Without Him it is impossible, but with Him all things are possible. It is a process, and the book of James tells us many of the Scriptural ingredients that we need to take note of, if we are going to keep moving forward to appropriate the promised fruit of our faith and obedience.