TRIALS HAVE AN UPSIDE
Take a rough stone off a beach and polish it for a few hours. Once all the roughness is gone the stone is transformed into an object of beauty.
Patience is a quality found in God. If trials can make us more like Him, they must be a good thing. Wisdom is the ability to see the blessings in a trial. This is not all that easy, but with practise it is possible to find a blessing in every trial.
Trials mean, for
Christians, that God loves them, and that He wants to make them better
people. If we had no trials, we could conclude that God didn't care
about us.
James links trials with wisdom. This is a very important link because
we need to understand the PURPOSE of our trials. They are not just
random trials, or problems, or unpleasant events, which come along by
accident. God orders all trials, and controls their size and duration.
He is always in charge.
WHY does God tell us this?
What is so great about trials?
Athletes DELIBERATELY give themselves
trials, because they know the
hard training
will make them tougher and stronger. In
fact, some
exercises are called
"resistance training."
Some trials Christians go through are:
Living with unpleasant people,
Doing more jobs than seems fair,
Praying repeatedly but not seeing answers,
Being criticised or slandered by nasty people,
Being sick, injured or physically disabled,
Going short of money for a while...
In
fact, nearly all the trials Christians go through are also experienced
by most other people. The difference is our response and end result. A
trial can make us either better or bitter.
