Trials

by L.A. Hickling, Cromer, U.K. | Category: General | Jan 1985

You will remember the lines of the well-known hymn:

Have we trials or temptations,

Is there trouble anywhere?

The answer to the question must quite often be "Yes". We do have trials, even though we have taken the Lord Jesus as Saviour and committed our lives to Him. Trials are those experiences which come to oppress us and the. Lord Jesus never promised that our lives as Christians would be all smooth and free from them. Rather the reverse; if we follow Him faithfully there will inevitably be trials in our lives. So, when James writes in his letter about trials, he doesn't say, "If they come", he says "Whenever they come" (1:2) - for come they surely will.

We read in the book of Daniel, chapter 3, of trial of the severest kind that came to three young men who took their stand for God. The decree of the great autocrat had been proclaimed; everyone must bow to the image he had set up. The penalty for refusal was death of the cruellest kind - burning in a superheated furnace. But those men couldn't bow to that image. They were servants of the God of heaven and owed their allegiance to Him. So they were faced with the most searching trial, to yield and live, or to stand firm and die. They stood firm, testifying to the king that their God was able to deliver them from the furnace if that was His will. But if it was not His will then He had the power to enable them to go through the furnace. Their faith was well founded. They were not delivered from the furnace; God's will was that they should go into it, but they had the presence of God with them there and they came out unscathed. God is always in control. He will not suffer us to be tried beyond what we are able but, as 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it".

James in his New Testament letter says a remarkable thing, "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trial". It seems so unlikely, doesn't it, that we could consider facing a trial as pure joy? We could perhaps face it stoically without grumbling too much or having too mournful a face - but to treat it as pure joy, how can we do that? Only as we realize that God has a purpose in trials for us, and His purposes are always for our good. Trials are for our refining. As we come through them with His help they are proof of our faith and they lead to steadfastness.

Then too, we must realize that the Lord will be with us in the trial, keeping close, just as He did with the men in the furnace. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and we can seek His aid, approaching the throne of grace with confidence that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

(Scriptural quotations are taken from the N.I.V.)

L.A. Hickling, Cromer, U.K. | Jan 1985
General