Trials

Trials either bring the best or the worst in a person. The past couple of months have not been particularly easy for me. I remember making a prayer unto the Lord sometime back saying, “Lord help me like you, Christ like, humble compassionate etc etc. Yup He took me at my word and very lovingly gave me a set of trials. 

Let me be honest here, I don’t like trials. If I could just have endurance,character, hope (Rom 5: 3-4) without going through tough times, I would be a happy girl. But it does not work that way. Some of the most humble people that I have interacted with have gone though the severest trials. Trials are good, hard as it may sound they are made to make us more like Him. Jesus Christ did not have it easy when he was on the earth (1 Peter 2: 21 22), they why do we, His followers, expect that it will be easy for us?

Something that I have learnt while I am going through a tough time is to continue to keep my focus on Christ. I need to constantly remind myself of his steadfast love, His goodness and His sense of justice( and His many other attributes). The one question I ask myself during a trial is “What am I thinking of God right now?”  Do I continue to believe that He is my shepherd and that He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters? (Psalm 23)

I am not writing here to dish out advice, but I talk from my own failings and how graciously the Lord has taught me the last few months that He loves me and cares for me much, and He has not forsaken me or left me alone in these times.

One of the passages that I kept going back to is from 1 Peter 1:6-9. Will end here with the verses :)

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 honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:6-9, ESV)