Don’t Waste Your Trial, (Part 1)

Eventually, they come to everyone. You can’t really plan for them, because they sneak up in the middle of the night, or they raid your happiest moments in life, or destroy the ending to the perfect story.

The formula that most people use for trials is simply to buckle in and hope they don’t fall out. When mine came, it surprised me. I had no idea. I thought about just gritting my teeth and enduring. But what if the trial isn’t an 8-second bull ride? What if it lasts months? Years? A lifetime?

Suddenly, just holding on until it’s over doesn’t make sense. But if all we want is mere survival – to endure to the end – we will have wasted the trial, we will have missed out on God’s blessing.

John Piper wrote a few years ago about Not Wasting His Cancer, and Marvin Olaskeywrote about Not Wasting His Bypass. Even though I’ve never had to utter the ‘C’ word and my heart is just fine, I still have had trials. With their inspiration, here are few adapted thoughts.

You will waste your trial is you believe it is a curse, and not a gift.

“Trying to test Jesus, some men brought Jesus a crippled boy. “Whose sin was it that caused this? His parents or his?” Jesus said “Neither, but he is like to this so God can be glorified.”

We all know this verse, yet when we are afflicted; we still ask “What did I do to bring this on?”

Some are three-pack-a day smokers and the lung removal is no surprise. Or the man who gets behind the wheel three kites to the wind shouldn’t be surprised to wake up on a thin mattress in a concrete cell.

But for many of us, it seems that “life” just seems to grab us, like a sudden wave on the beach pulling blankets and sunglasses and cell phones out with the tide.

It’s not a curse, but a gift, If in the testing, your faith becomes real, if your love becomes purposeful, if your life finds traction.

You waste your trial if you fail to rejoice

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame.” Romans 5:3

Trials can awaken the senses and spark the cold heart.

We gain none of those benefits if we are sullen or withdrawn. We miss out on character and hope and love if we’re out to blame someone, something. There is nothing more earth-shattering than a shout of joy in the midst of calamity.

You will waste your trial if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.

Some count their chariots and some count their horses , but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7).

“The world gets comfort from their odds. Not us,” writes Piper.

Cancer survival rates are amazing today. But if you put your hope in the 7 in 10 ten chance of survival, you’ll miss out on what the real mission to your heart. There are other odds – and we are always betting on doctors, or spouses changing their minds, or kids coming back home.

Here some new odds. You will have a 100 percent chance of suffering at some point in your life. But rest-assured, that you also can have 100 percent odds of receiving Christ’s comfort, meeting you in your deepest distress, and restoring your simple joy.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2, “Don’t Waste Your Trial”

Photo Credit, Simply Darlene. used with permission

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