Encouragement

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Life’s Challenges

Life’s challenges - why do we face them? How do we respond? God did not promise that Christians would not face them. James wrote “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds …” (1:2) Did you catch that? Not if, but when we face trials.
Everyone will face them. The trials could be a death, illness, struggles in a marriage, infertility, accidents, lost jobs. It would take too long and many sheets of paper to list the potential troubles. We have three choices in response to them. We could let it consume us. And just never get through it and recover. Or we can chose to become bitter and angry at the “world”, God, the system. Satan smiles when we choose to respond in one of these ways. He rejoices when we turn away bitter and upset. Allowing it (whatever it happens to be) to eat us up. Destroying the good that could come out of it.
As Christians, God hopes that we learn from the challenge. And if we were “wronged” as a part of it, that we forgive. Trials are a part of God’s plan. God causes some things, allows others, but He is in control of all things. James continues in verses 3-4 “…testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” “A testing of our faith” as James puts it. God uses trials to deepen our faith.
Think for a moment about gold and silver. Gold is purified by heating it to its melting point. (That is almost 1948° F.) The heat and fire allows the impurities to float to the surface and then they can be skimmed away. So the most pure gold has under gone much fire - trials. Just as our faith is purified by our challenges.
To make a beautiful silver piece, a silversmith must fire the lump of silver and then pound it. This process continues until the piece is shaped as the silversmith wants it. Again just like us. Under God’s hands, we face trials and allow Him to make us “beautiful” - something to be used by God for His purpose.
Our challenges can show others a resiliency. II Corinthians 4:7-9, “but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” That resiliency come from God. We can show God to others through trials. Someone wrote Christians live better, love better, cry better, die better. Our struggles handled correctly allow Jesus to shine. Paul in II Corinthians 11 spoke of them to glorify God. To Timothy in II Timothy 4:17, Paul wrote, “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.”
Our challenges can be for the benefit of others. Stephen as stoned to death in Acts 7. That trial was led to the church scattering throughout Judea and Samaria. That “scattering” took the gospel out of Jerusalem to the world. Paul and Silas were in prison in Acts 16. That challenge allowed the jailer and his family hear and receive the gospel. Our challenges can help other as well. Almost 20 years ago, I faced a season of challenges. God used that to save a friend who was contemplating suicide.
When you face trials, remember it has a purpose. Allow it to bring you a “tougher spiritual skin” - build your faith. No matter what other benefits may come, all trials can bring a deeper faith to you if - if you let it. Allow God to use you to glorify Himself and/or aid others.
We may never understand the whys. But know He does. Be willing to let him work. Charles Durham in his book, Temptation: Help for Struggling Christians, wrote “Often God lets us struggle rather than stepping in like a big brother to do our fighting for us. No doubt he could make it all so easy and every moment of life so pleasant. But as we struggle, becoming exhausted almost beyond endurance, changes occur in us which could not happen otherwise: the ‘fluids’ expand our wings and in time we can fly. Cut the struggle short at some crucial point and we are crippled forever… or until God gives another opportunity for struggle that will do what the first aborted struggle should have been allowed to do.” Accept that God knows best. He is working in us and for us.

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