I think many of us know well the ups and downs of life. In fact, we may have spent more time in the discouraging valleys than on the wonderful mountaintops. We may have had our heart and spirit squashed over and over again.
Yet through the trials and heartache we learn this important lesson: This life is not all there is and this world really holds nothing for us.
Through the pain, we learn to live for eternity, not for the delights of this world. We learn that our joy and strength and purpose are found in the Lord, not in anything this world can give us or do for us.
And these are eternally important lessons to learn.
I think as we grow in our faith, we learn to not put our faith in our feelings or in our current circumstances. When we are baby Christians, we base a lot of things on our emotions and we are always seeking after the next emotional, spiritual high. And so if things are going good, we feel good about ourselves and about our faith and about God. But if things are going bad, we wonder what’s wrong with us, with our faith, and with God.
But as we grow, we know that emotional highs are great, but they do not last. And they do not necessarily indicate how strong our faith is or the quality of our relationship with God or whether God is happy with us or not. Emotional highs come and go, but our faith needs to remain strongly rooted in God. In His Truth. In His goodness. In His love.
However, as I look back, I realize that getting that “strong-rooted faith” is an incredibly difficult part of the journey because it usually means first going through a lot of storms to test our faith. A deep trust in God does not usually come without a lot of heartache, dying to self, pruning, and testing.
Usually, it is a journey through a refining fire (a furnace of painful trials) that purifies our faith, our priorities, our motives, our humility, our trust, etc.
These trials cause us to choose: Cling to ourselves or cling to God? Self-confidence or confidence in God? Try to remain lord of our own life or let God be God?
(And for unbelievers, trials are a fork-in-the-road, too - a "who will you turn to" moment. Will you turn to God for help or to something else?)
These are painful tests. Being in a fire (a furnace of painful trials) burns. It hurts. But fire also purifies, getting rid of all the pollutants and the things which compromise the integrity of something. And in the end – even if the process hurts - fire makes it stronger.
This is how it is with our faith. If we do not run from the fire!
And many people do! Many Christians give up when it gets too hot or too hard or when the wait is too long. They turn their backs on God because they feel He cannot be trusted. (And many unbelievers will turn to anything but God for help.) They do not hang in there long enough to see Him come through for them, to see the purifying, strengthening effect that the fiery trial would have had. And that is their loss! And a loss for Kingdom of God!
The trials will always be there. There will always be pain. But if you are wise, you will choose to grow through the trial, to turn to God for help, to cling to Him no matter what, to let the pain purify and strengthen your faith.
Never waste a trial. Never let all that pain amount to nothing but emptiness in the end. Let it propel you into the arms of God.
Let it bring forward all the fears, doubts, sins, brokenness, misconceptions, and assumptions that you have about life, yourself, others, and God. Present those to God in prayer and ask Him to purify them, to help you see things clearly. Give Him the broken parts of your heart – in honest, humble transparency – and let Him heal them. Ask for His strength when you have none of your own. Tell Him you will trust Him, even when you don't understand.
If you seek to grow through the trials and to let them teach you, they will lead to growth, to a stronger, purer faith and a greater trust in Him . . . which will lead to more contentment, joy, and peace, no matter what life throws your way. But none of this will happen if you run away when it gets too hot.
I know for me, I can get so discouraged with this life that I want to check out emotionally. But this should not be. This life is not about having a “happy life,” about getting everything we want. It is our chance to find God, to love Him, to let Him love us, to find eternal life.
And for Christians, it is our one chance to live Christ to others, to be salt and light to those around us. If we check out and curl up in a ball of discouragement or if we wash our hands of this whole exhausting world, who will be there to help the lost find their way to the Truth? To help the hurting find the healing and help they need?
I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the less “happy” this life gets. There is too much violence, uncertainty, heartache, brokenness, hatred, criticism, struggle, strife, cynicism, and conflict for us to really be happy. So if we make happiness our goal, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Because there will always be another heartbreaking trial, another interpersonal conflict, another toy that we don’t have but want, and a lack of resources to get all that we want. (I challenge you to find one verse where God says, “I just want you to be happy!”)
We cannot set our hearts and sights on being “happy” in this life. We need to set our sights on Christ and on finding peace, joy, and contentment in Him, even in the hard times. Especially in the hard times. And we need to learn to be faithful, obedient, God-glorifying soldiers in the valleys and hard times, instead of searching for the next mountaintop experience or spiritual high. Our faith becomes more real the more it is tested.
And one day, in the end, after a long and difficult journey, we will make it to that last mountaintop. And we'll finally be Home.
