Perspective in Trials

I read this in the Gospel Primer earlier this week and shared it with a friend. I know I must have also read it a couple of years ago or something like that. But since that time I've had some (just a very little, really) experiences of suffering and trials that allowed my heart to shout amen to the reality of how richly God does work his gospel purposes in us during those times. And it comforts me to know that he will be faithful to do so again and again, whether I must face significant trials in my unknown future or even small ones in my more known and immediate future. Whether it's struggling with aches and pains in my back and neck tonight, or facing the biggest loss I can imagine down the road, I can know the peace and comfort that comes in knowing Christ through the gospel.

Perspective in Trials

More than anything else could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them. For the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realize that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realize instead that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every other aspect of my life, including my severest trials. The good news about my trials is that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ.

Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which I can view my trials in this way and see the true cause for intelligent rejoicing that exists in them. I can then embrace them as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me.

It is an amazing evidence of the Spirit's work that would bring someone to genuinely say, "I do indeed embrace trials and suffering as friends who do God's good work in me." Maybe not all trials and not all of the time, but it's miraculous nonetheless that my heart could ever be thankful for difficulty.

photo: Lubeck, Germany 2007