Stay the Course Through Trials

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

It seems odd, as though something is continually trying to knock me off balance. I just regain my footing and something hits from the other direction. I just finish with one request or requirement and another one, equally demanding, comes. During this season of campaign, with lots of moving parts and just four months into my leading of the team, we have been hit with wave after wave. Much like a small vessel crossing the ocean, each wave tends to push us off track and slow our progress. But just as if we were a small vessel, the task is to stay the course, head into the waves, take them on the bow and continue to motor on.

In howling winds, a sailing ship will lower its sails and use its motor to continue to make progress. Why? Less impact from the wind, which keeps it from being moved around on the ocean like a light feather. Instead, the ship will steer into the waves so it will not be tipped over sideways and swamped, and it will continue to motor on, content to make whatever progress it can during the bad weather.

That’s true about life. When the winds are blowing and the skies are angry, it’s best to keep a low profile, turn so as to get as little damage from the elements, and continue on. If you can outlast the weather you’ll one day be sailing in fair seas and light winds because eventually, all storms blow themselves out.

Life’s trials have purpose. They don’t feel so at the time. They feel painful. They feel unfair. But there is a reason. The clay gets kneaded by the potter so that it will be malleable. As the potters fingers dig into the clay and fold it and push in to it, the clay gradually becomes more pliable. It gives up its stiffness and can now be conformed to the potter’s hands into something useful, such as a vessel. Certainly the kneading process would not be that fun to human clay. But if we are never bent we do not gain flexibility. A tree that never faces wind will break readily in a storm, where one that has faced winds throughout its life will bend easily, because that is what it has been trained to do by the conditions around it.

A child that is sheltered from life will not gain the usefulness of having learned how to deal with things under relatively controlled circumstances. Then when the child is tested later in life they will not have had the experience to handle the uncertainty they have encountered.

So it is that God conditions us. Pain and trial are as much a part of the Christian life as joy and celebration. And, they are even more important because they are preparation. Those who never face hardship have very little perspective. But the proud get reduced to the humble during trials. These cause empathy. Perspective.

Romans 5:3-5 says this:
“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Going through painful trials makes us stronger so we can persevere. It builds our character. And that character, which mirrors the heart of Christ, gives us hope because we see that God has molded us into something that he can finally use. The stiff clay has been made into a vessel from which God can pour.