7 Questions for Trials
James 1:2-4 says:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
What a beautiful, simple passage! Essentially: Trials produce steadfastness, steadfastness leads to your completion and perfection, so count trials as joy.
1 Peter 1:6-7 and Romans 5:3-5 are similar. It’s a reality that God uses difficulties like trials for our sanctification. It’s unavoidable. But we’re invited to delight in that fact rather than dread it.
Because we dislike trials and tests of faith, we may approach verses like these with lots of questions. Questions like:
If I’m going through trials right now, am I experiencing God’s punishment?
How hard does it have to be to count as a trial / test of faith?
God knows my faith – why does it need to be tested?
How does the testing of my faith produce steadfastness?
If I’d rather not go through trials and testing to build up my steadfastness, can I just get by with the steadfastness I already have?
How do we let steadfastness “have its full effect”?
How am I supposed to be joyful in trials?
Let’s try and tackle these questions here so we can find the joy that James, Peter, and Paul wrote about.
1. If I’m going through trials right now, am I experiencing God’s punishment?
Have you ever felt like God was punishing you? God is just, after all. He does hate sin. We are all sinners. Is God’s punishment an unavoidable part of our lives? Are trials God’s way of punishing us?
The simple answer, thankfully, is no! Let’s read 1 Corinthians 11:32:
But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
Punishment appears in this verse in the word “condemned”. It’s justice against the wrong-doer. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, he took on that just punishment for all who would believe in him across history. That justice is accounted for. That condemnation is not ours.
But “discipline” is something else. Paul describes a discipline that prevents our condemnation. How does that work?
Let’s look again at the James passage. Trials and “testing of your faith” produce “steadfastness”. Steadfastness against what? Against the pull of the world away from Jesus. Steadfastness to resist the enemy’s efforts to pull us out of the grace of Jesus.
Jesus has won for us God’s mercy by taking our condemnation upon himself. He has done all the work. But without steadfastness, we may turn away from him. Praise God that he works in us to strengthen our faith in Jesus! This is how the “discipline” in 1 Corinthians is not only distinguished from condemnation, but helps us avoid it.
2. How hard does it have to be to count as a trial / test of faith?
This question comes from the idea that sometimes we discount our own trials. “Oh, it’s not as bad as what my friend is going through, so it doesn’t really count.” This can be isolating and discouraging. But James acknowledges trials of “various kinds”, and he’s surely including both big and small.
Romans 8:28 helps us with this, too:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
“For those who love God all things work together for good”. Isn’t that wonderful? All things, overtly good or seemingly bad, work together for good for those who love God. What a privilege to know Jesus, that all things would work together for our good! If all things work together for good, this means God is purposeful in all things. The most mundane “trial” is achieving God’s good purposes.
Sometimes we may feel overlooked by God, or feel like collateral damage in someone else’s journey. But nothing is so small that God isn’t at work through it.
Now, just because these trials are achieving God’s good purposes, doesn’t mean God is to blame for our afflictions. Joseph draws this distinction beautifully in Genesis, after being beaten and sold as a slave by his brothers, imprisoned, and falsely accused. Ultimately he was able to provide his family refuge in famine. He said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”
What happened was evil. It was their act of evil. But in God’s sovereignty he used it for good.
Praise God that whatever evil we experience, God is somehow using it for good!
3. God knows my faith – why does it need to be tested?
James describes trials as “testing of your faith”. Now, in my recollection, when I’ve done tests in school it’s to prove to the teachers what I’ve learned. The testing itself isn’t for my benefit. Given that God knows us inside and out, surely we don’t need to be tested.
But the testing of our faith is not for God’s benefit. It’s for ours. When our faith is tested, we discover what God enables us to do. How many times have you been encouraged through difficulty by someone else who has been through the same thing – someone whose faith through this kind of situation has been proven? How many times has your faith been tested and you’ve been encouraged by someone whose faith has already been tested the same way!
So the testing of our faith is a “proving” for us and for those around us that display God’s goodness.
But the testing of our faith also strengthens it. As James writes, “the testing of your faith produces steadfastness”.
God is at work in all of his children. He’s making us more like Jesus. He’s making our hearts look more like his. And hard hearts need a sharp chisel. But God’s workmanship is excellent, and so we can take joy that he is at work in us.
4. How does the testing of my faith produce steadfastness?
Let’s elaborate on how trials and testing of our faith actually does good work in us. How does it actually produce steadfastness? Let’s look at Peter’s version in 1 Peter 1:6-7:
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
This image of gold being refined by fire is apt. When gold is melted, its impurities rise to the top so they can be removed from the pure gold. Trials are one way God purifies and refines our hearts like gold.
When we are, as Peter puts it, “grieved by various trials”, this is a refining opportunity for our hearts. Trials put our hopes and desires to the test. When Jesus talks about storing up treasure in heaven rather than on earth, he’s telling us to consider where we put our hope.
Do we trust in our job security? A large savings account? Do we find our value in our reputation? Trials will often put these false gods to the test. And like a refining fire, they rise to the top to be burned away. When our relationships don’t save us, when our bank accounts or jobs or aspirations can’t stand up to trials, the false gods of our hearts are shown for what they are. Our hope in things that pass away can pass away, too.
5. If I’d rather not go through trials and testing to build up my steadfastness, can I just get by with the steadfastness I already have?
I’ve asked this question before. I’m humble enough – I don’t need to be humbled, do I? I’m steadfast enough – I don’t need that steadfastness to be stretched, right?
This is why it’s so important to understand the joy and rejoicing that God’s Word is telling us about. God’s work in our lives is worth rejoicing over. Sanctification is worth delighting in. And I take comfort in James’ words in verse 4, that we “may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing”. Trials and testing of faith aren’t an endless treadmill. They’re not a necessary evil of living in a broken world. God is using these challenging times to get us closer and closer to a final destination. He’s doing work that will one day be complete. And that completed work will be perfect!
Can I encourage you to reflect on the work God has already done in your life? How has God been making you more like him? It’s difficult to just will ourselves to have the right attitude towards trials. But we can lean into the work God is doing in us. We can encourage each other that as we are made more like Jesus, we’ll desire that God keeps doing that work in us.
Which leads us to:
6. How do we let steadfastness “have its full effect”?
Have you ever tried to fast-track your way out of a trial by introspection? I know I have – I’ve thought, “Okay, this is a trial, my faith is being tested. What is the goal here? What’s the outcome God’s looking for? If I can figure it out, I can just learn the lesson, make the change, and then God will let me out of this trial.” I figured there are two ways to learn things: the easy way and the hard way. The easy way is to learn from what we see and hear, and the hard way is to learn through trials.
“If I’m good at learning the easy way”, I figured, “I won’t have to learn the hard way.”
As it turns out, sometimes I need to learn things the hard way. Experience can change us much more deeply. Thankfully, God knows exactly how to make that change happen.
So how do we make the most of these trials? How do we let steadfastness “have its full effect”? Just like exercising, there are no shortcuts, but there are good techniques:
Lean into God. Pray. God loves to hear your voice. Persist in prayer (Luke 18:1). And listen. God wants us to know him. He has made himself known to us in his Word, so dig into it and know him better. Take courage that God is a good Father who knows what’s best for us, and loves to give us his best (Matthew 7:9-11).
Lean into Christian community. 1 Corinthians 12:26 says “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.” Romans 12:15 says to rejoice together and to weep together.
Our faith journey is not a solitary journey. We are not made to live in parallel paths of isolation, occasionally checking in on each other to reflect on how our training has been going. We are made to love one another and to participate with one another. We’re made to encourage each other and to present one another mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28) – that means doing it together!
God will humble us and teach us and build us up as we share our struggles with each other and confess to each other. We can only truly let steadfastness have its full effect by doing what we were made to do: being in loving relationship with God and with our neighbour. So let’s lean in!
7. How am I supposed to be joyful in trials?
So finally, how are we supposed to actually be joyful in trials? I see two answers here: a head-knowledge answer and a heart-knowledge answer.
The head-knowledge answer is that when we “count it all joy”, we are reminding ourselves that trials are ultimately good. “God is working through this for good. God’s purposes are not being frustrated. His work in me will be complete. This must be good.”
And this is great. Preach to yourself with your head-knowledge. Massage it into yourself. Reason about the reality of God’s goodness through trials and talk yourself through it.
But there’s also a heart-knowledge joy that’s available to us. A joy won for us by Jesus when he “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). A joy that had Paul and Silas singing hymns in prison. I think Paul was speaking from this heart-knowledge when he wrote in Philippians 4:10-13:
I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
In the face of trials – in the face of the worst experiences of our lives, or prolonged challenges that wear us down, or any season we would rather not be in – there is a confidence available to us. A certainty that whatever we’re enduring can only take away what’s already perishable. And whatever we’re enduring cannot touch the imperishable. Rejoice!
We have access to that joy because we know Jesus. Consider what he has won for us. Consider the freedom we have in him. Like Paul, let’s consider that our trials are “light momentary afflictions” in comparison to the eternal weight of glory in Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:17). The more we preach to ourselves, the deeper that head-knowledge seeps into our hearts. And the greater our hearts know the joy we have in Jesus, the more readily that joy springs forth in trials.
Thankfully it’s not just up to us to do that work in our own hearts. God is at work there, changing us and shaping us to be more like Jesus. It can hurt along the way, and it can be difficult for us to understand, but let’s thank God that he is at work. To strengthen us. To equip us. To encourage us and mature us. To make us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Let’s count it all joy!
