A Different Way of Looking at Trials
Louise Duval
MA, LPC, LAC, CAC
2/28/2022
Life is hard and many times when I am going through a hard time, my prayer is God, help me get out of this! However, I wonder if God wants us to look at hard times or trials in a different way. This is what the Bible says about our trials: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). God uses trials for His glory and our good if we let Him.
When you are going through a trial there are at least 3 truths you can hold onto. God is with you in the trial. In Deuteronomy 31:8 it says, “The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” So, you are not going through it alone, the all-powerful, all-loving God is with you. Another truth is, God was not surprised by the hard time. God is all-knowing and can see everything so He knows everything that will happen to us from the time we are born until the time our life on this earth ends so no hard time in this life is a surprise to Him. A third truth is that God will use it in your life. I don’t believe God causes hard times. Many times, our trials come about because of our sin, the sin of someone else, or are just the result of living in a fallen world, but God loves us too much to allow us to go through something hard and not use it. God’s economy is perfect and He wastes nothing. In 1 Peter 1:6-7 says, “…now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Knowing these truths will not get you through the trial any faster and you may still have many unanswered questions, but knowing these truths may change your perspective so that you are better able to endure the trial. And as you endure it relying on God, others will see that and they will want to know about your God that is helping you walk through your trials differently than everyone else.
So, next time you face a trial, it is ok to feel sad, scared, or even angry, but take those feelings to God and ask Him to remind you of His presence and ask Him some of these questions: What do You want me to learn from this? How can I use my experience to help someone else? What can I learn about You through this? How do You want to change me? I wonder if many times, we are so focused on getting out of our trial that we miss something valuable God wants to show us or miss an opportunity to be used by Him in someone else’s life.