When We Go Through Trials, We Come Out Stronger Than Ever in Our Faith

People who suffer or are going through trials are not unfortunate or unhappy, but rather fortunate, blessed, and can even rejoice in the trials they are going through.

The apostle James says: “Behold, we count those who suffer blessed. You have heard of Job’s patience and have seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very merciful and compassionate.” So the apostle James is again suggesting that patience must also be shown when we are going through tribulation, anguish, and suffering. We should see it, rather, from the Lord’s perspective, from the perspective of the end of the trial we are going through.

Not the end in the sense of its ceasing, but rather the purpose the trial serves, right? And we can also see that whenever we go through tribulations and look at them through the Spirit, their outcome and result will always be extremely positive. Something good will come into our lives if we go through those trials with faith and confidence that the Lord knows the reason for things.

And so the apostle James uses Job as an example. Job, a righteous man, a God-fearing man who had always conducted himself in an exemplary way, is tested by Satan and falls into a terrible trial. And the entire Book of Job shows us how Job was struggling within himself, doubting God on the one hand, but also wanting to believe and striving to believe that God makes sense even in life’s most tragic situations. And finally, when Job has gone through that trial, what happens? It says that God reveals Himself to him and lets him see a much deeper side of His Person.

God answers the questions Job had. In the end, Job knows God in a very different way from how he knew Him before. In fact, Job says: “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You.” That is, one of the things Job experiences as he goes through that great trial and sees its outcome is that he can see God in a very different way. Trials, when we go through them in faith, often end up teaching us something about God, a very profound dimension of God.

I think of what Psalm 40 says: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry,” and it says: “And He brought me up out of the pit of despair, out of the miry clay. He set my feet upon a rock and made my steps firm. Then He put a new song in my mouth. Many will see this and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”

We see in this case that, for the psalmist, one of the results of waiting patiently for the Lord until, as he finally says, the Lord heard my cry and brought me out, is this: He set my feet upon a rock. I believe that many times, when we go through trials, we end up stronger than ever, more firmly grounded than ever in our faith. It says: He put a new song in my mouth, praise, it says, to our God. In other words, another thing that comes out of trials is a new song. I believe that new song is a renewed way of seeing God, a new way of seeing and understanding life, a new character within us, an attitude of greater joy and greater firmness in our relationship with the Lord. Many times our ministries are renewed and strengthened when we come through a trial victorious.

So the result of a trial is, rather, to strengthen us and root us more firmly in the things of the Lord. That is what happened to Job: he came out of the trial with a much more renewed understanding and perspective of the Lord. That is why James says: “And you have seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very merciful and compassionate.” So James says, look at what happened to the various prophets and the figures in Scripture. They, too, went through their own trials, and yet the Lord brought them through all of them victorious.

We can think of Moses, forty years in the wilderness and then another forty years—or rather, forty years before that in Egypt and then forty years in the wilderness—and the Lord brought them out, blessed the Hebrew people, and brought them through all their trials. We can think of Elijah and his great trial when he was persecuted by Jezebel. We can think of Daniel and the trials of the lions’ den, the fiery furnace; Joseph, too, unjustly imprisoned for so many years. The great men of God, in different ways, and the great women of God went through their own trials.

Think of Esther, think of Ruth, Sarah. All these great figures went through various trials, but the Lord brought them through every one victorious and brought them out stronger than ever. So if you are going through a trial, remember that the Lord’s end—the purpose, the final outcome of trials—is wonderfully positive. God bless you, and until our next segment.