Discovering God in Times of Testing

Can you imagine what the marble must have looked like
before Michelangelo began carving his "Pieta"?

There’s an adage we sometimes hear that we can learn more from failure than we do from success. We could offer a variety of possible reasons for this, but my experience and that of many people I know is that, whether we like it or not, it’s true.

Success might be the result of vision, hard work and determination. But it might also be a product of being in the right place at the right time, or happenstance. Causes for failure, however, are usually easier to identify: Poor judgment; bad planning; not working hard enough; unwillingness to persevere, quitting too soon; downright sinful wrongdoing. Those are just some of possible contributors to failure.

 

But there’s another one we don’t often consider: God might be allowing adversity in our lives because He has some lessons we need to learn. The Bible calls it “testing,” “tribulations” or “trials.” 

 

One of the earliest references in the Scriptures is Deuteronomy, after God had given to Moses His commandments and instructions for the people of Israel. Referring to the nomadic journey the Lord had taken them on after their escape from slavery in Egypt, Moses said, “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

 

If ever there were a stiff-necked people, it was the Israelites whom God had specifically and specially chosen to be His own people. He could have chosen many other people groups, but the people of Israel were those He ordained to be His for eternity. During their 40-year wanderings, they had rebelled against Him on numerous occasions. So, He kept them in the wilderness for four decades, not only to test what was in their hearts but also to shape their character for the future He had for them.

 

A number of New Testament passages speak to this as well. In James 1:3-4, the apostle exhorts his readers, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Verses later James adds, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12).

 

There’s a similar statement in the short book of 1 Peter. After opening his letter to readers he calls “God’s elect, strangers in the world…,” Peter encourages, “In this you greatly rejoice, though for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – or 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 is revealed” (1 Peter 1:1,7).

 

We could cite many other passages, but it’s clear that what we often regard as failure, or mistakenly believe to be the result of sinful disobedience, might actually part of the refining process God uses to mold and shape us into the people He desires for us to be.

 

I can think of many times of testing in my life, times when I often wondered, ‘What did I do wrong?’ ‘Why is this happening?’ The benefits of the testing began when I shifted my questioning to ask, ‘What are you trying to teach me, Lord?’ 

 

There was the time when after leaving the newspaper business to join the staff of a Christian ministry, our house in our former city sat on the market for an entire year. All the while we struggled to meet mortgage payments on that house and the house we had bought, along with a bridge loan to buy the purchase of the new house in the interim. 

 

During that time, I dug deeply and diligently into the Scriptures, seeking to learn that “nugget” God was trying to teach me. I learned many things over that period, but the most important was this: The Lord telling me, “I am God, Bob, and you’re not!” He was eagerly working to break down my self-sufficiency and learn to trust Him, no matter the circumstances.

 

Since then, I and my family have dealt with testing in many forms. We felt fear at times, as well as anger, frustration, you name it. But God knew exactly what He was doing. And we’ve learned much as we’ve gone through the process.

 

Some sculptors, they say, work on a block of granite or marble simply chipping away at everything that does not look like the image they have formed in their mind’s eye. I imagine God doing the same with us, knowing how broken we all are, and slowly chipping away at our flaws, determined to transform us into the image of His Son. 

As 1 John 3:2 says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Wow! If that’s the outcome of God’s faithful and loving testing in our lives, I’m all for it. How about you? 

The Vanishing Virtues of Patience and Perseverance

Once in a while, it seems, a typo can be more accurate than the word spelled correctly. Case in point: The sign standing alongside a hospital parking lot read, “Impatient Parking Only.” Apparently, someone was too impatient to proofread the sign! But in reality, most people parking there were probably as much “impatients” as they were in-patients. 

How many times have you arrived at a doctor’s office as a patient and as time ticked away in the waiting room, you turned into an frustrated “impatient”? 

 

More and more, impatience is becoming a dominant factor in many areas of life. A popular adage told us, “A watched pot never boils,” but these days it’s more like, “A watched microwave never beeps.” We used to be willing to wait days for correspondence to arrive via postal mail; now we become anxious when an email doesn’t arrive within a few minutes after it was promised. And when we send a text, we expect an immediate response.

“Impatient parking only.” Maybe we all should post this sign by our driveways, our workplaces – and even our recliners. It’s an appropriate sign of our times. 

 

I’m old enough to remember the days when it took at least a couple of minutes for the TV to “warm up” before we could watch our favorite show. Now we become annoyed if the screen doesn’t illuminate the instant we press the remote. Waiting for the red light to turn to green? Or for the driver in front to start moving once it does? Don’t get me started.

 

Our entire existence is littered with time-saving devices, ones that have succeeded in making us ever-less tolerant of anything that delays our intended objectives. Even larger-scope matters, such as attending college or advancing in a career, are afflicted with IV – the Impatience Virus. 

 

Virtues like perseverance seem old-fashioned. Because it requires patience and determination, a resolve to persist even when obstacles and delays emerge. We want what we want – but we must have it now – not tomorrow! 

 

Those of us who’ve had to grind it out in life, however, understand the two steps forward one step back path that progress often takes. Were it not for applying patience and perseverance to the tasks at hand, we’d still be wallowing in the world of “woulda, shoulda, coulda.” 

 

The apostle Paul certainly recognized that. Writing to his protégé Timothy, he said, “Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance” (2 Timothy 3:10), going on to recount the persecutions and suffering he endured during his ministry. 

 

How could Paul do this? He relied on the power of Christ at work in him – “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13) – and kept his eyes, mind and heart set on the overarching goal of advancing the Gospel.

 

We don’t have to be apostles or “super-Christians,” however, to manifest these traits. We’re repeatedly reminded that patience and perseverance are intrinsic to the victorious life of faith. The book of James opens with the admonition, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4).

 

Like it or not, having our faith tested by challenges and adversity is one of the primary ways it grows strong, one day hopefully resulting in our becoming “mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

 

Writing to believers in Rome, Paul expressed a similar view: “…And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 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…” (Romans 5:2-4).

 

I’d hate to admit the many times I’ve grown impatient as I prayed to God, asking Him to do a certain thing in a certain way. But what I perceived as His delay actually proved to be one of His means for developing in me the patience and perseverance I desperately needed – qualities I’d need even more later on. The best way to cultivate patience, I learned, is by having no recourse other than to be patient.

 

In retrospect, I also realized that for the Lord to answer specific prayer requests, often a series of other things had to occur first. Kind of like dominoes toppling in succession, one following the other. What I saw as delay was actually His flawless timing. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11).

 

As Ecclesiastes 3:11 states, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time,” even if His time is not the same as our time.

Learning Experiences

It’s sometimes said that experience is the best teacher. Some lessons learned through experiences can’t be grasped in any other way. That’s probably why so many parents find themselves on the verge of panic when their teenagers take their first solo drives. Even if you have complete confidence in them, there’s no way to prepare them for the unexpected. Only experience can do that.

In gaining experience,
remember - there will be a test.

One of the problems with having Mr. Experience as a primary teacher, however, is it includes so many tests in the curriculum. In fact, there’s rarely time to “study” for these tests – they present themselves as “pop quizzes.”

I remember the time when I was a wet-behind-the-ears college freshman, driving to school after being initiated into the local fraternity. I was wearing the required freshman “beanie” (orange and blue, if you need to know) and baby bib bearing the fraternity’s name, all part of a very tame hazing tradition. What I was thinking about I can’t recall – maybe the girl who would be sitting next to me in English class – but just ahead of me a car suddenly slowed dramatically.

An earlier accident had left a flooded street from a broken fire hydrant. Too late I noticed how rapidly my car was closing in on the other vehicle. I slammed on the brakes, but too late. I learned a quick lesson in hydroplaning and a moment later the hood of my car crumpled upward as it collided with the trunk of the auto in front of it. A practical but costly lesson in the principle of physics that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Thankfully no one was injured, other than my self-esteem. My embarrassment was magnified by the foolish-looking beanie and bib I was wearing for the occasion. I had flunked the test that experience had presented, but did learn an important lesson: “When driving, pay attention, dumb college student!”

No one hops on a bicycle for the first time and remains upright, perfectly balanced. There’s the wobbling as you cling to the handlebars, at least a few flops, and some tentative pedaling until you get the hang of it.  With experience though, you get better at it. At least most people do.

The first time I attempted public speaking I was a nervous wreck. Over time, and with experience, I found myself still nervous before speaking, but didn’t make the fool of myself that I feared. (At least that’s my opinion. Members of my audiences might beg to differ.)

But it’s the tests involved in the experience process that stand out. Often they’re difficult, and we might fail, but experience serves to help us in doing better the next time. This reality applies to newlyweds, suddenly discovering married life isn’t the piece of cake it seemed to be at the wedding. Similarly, first-time parents, no matter how enraptured they are by their new addition, find having a baby isn’t always the cute, cuddly experience they had imagined it would be. They, and infant, are learning on the fly.

Maybe that’s why we’re advised in James 1:2-4, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and compete, not lacking anything.”

Expanding on this idea later in the chapter it says, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under the trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).

The experiences of everyday life – along with the tests that accompany them – are often difficult, even painful. But they can be tools God uses to shape us into the people He intends for us to be. The fires of adversity typically are not anything we’d have sought for ourselves, or for our loved ones. But through these tests and the experience of persevering through them we become better, stronger, and hopefully more faithful people. For that we can truly say, “Thank you, Teacher.”