Testing and Trials – Our Spiritual Refining Process

Testing and Trials – Our Spiritual Refining Process

Testing and TrialsHow do you feel about spiritual testing? Are you tired of trials? I hear you. But, believe me, there’s more to testing and trials than we might think. There’re hidden blessings involved, you know.

Each trial has a purpose

Warren Wiersbe has said “Life’s trials are not easy. But in God’s will, each has a purpose. Often He uses them to enlarge you.” This already make me feel better of tests and trials. Each trial has a purpose. God has a plan. This too will pass. 

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2-4, MSG,*)

God Works Through Trials

Testing and trials bring our true colors out. As Charles Spurgeon puts it “You may readily judge whether you are a child of God or a hypocrite by seeing in what direction your soul turns in seasons of severe trial. The hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of comfort there. But the child of God runs to his Father and expects consolation only from the Lord’s hand.” Help is always near. God is working through testing and trials. 

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (1 Peter 1:6-8, NLT,*)

Our spiritual refining process

Testing and trials are all part of our God-ordained spiritual refining process. “Sometimes trials come simply to test and purify our faith” Joyce Meyer points out and continues “Sometimes God allows us to be tested because He’s preparing us for promotion.”

Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner. (1 Peter 4: 12-13, MSG,*)

Jack Hyles has said “I never had a trial I wanted to have, but I never had trial I wasn’t glad I had.” How true. We don’t want trials or testing but God uses them for our spiritual refining. Once they’re over we’re glad we had them. 

Woodrow Kroll urges us “Don’t let your trials blow you down; let them lift you up.” Through testing and trials we learn necessary spiritual lessons in order to mature in our faith. God will cause everything to work together for good for those who love him. We are in good hands. Let’s praise God even through testing and trials!

Let us pray:

Gracious God,
You have a purpose and a plan for me.
You even have a spiritual refining process ready for me.
I don’t like testing or trials but I know your plan is better than mine.
But I’ve learned to trust you in everything.
So, I surrender to you and ask that your way, your plan be done.
Teach me, Lord. Make me all you want me to be.
Be praised forever and ever!
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: How do you feel about God’s spiritual refining process?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you welcome God-ordained testing and trials in your life!

* [As you might have noticed, I enjoy reading the Bible in different translations and love comparing them. I have started linking the Bible verses toBiblegateway.com so you can easily read (and compare) them in the different versions I’ve used while preparing each post.].

Image courtesy of Mari-Anna Stålnacke. Linking up today with Dance with Jesus, Faith-filled Fridays, Five Minute Friday.

8 thoughts on “Testing and Trials – Our Spiritual Refining Process

  1. I’m not to the point of seeing trials and tests as gifts or being truly glad for them but I love remembering that God will always make good come from anything we struggle with. Peace.

  2. Very well-written and cogent post, Mari-Anna!

    I stopped seeing trials as a test years ago, when I saw people ‘tried’ literally to death; there are some things no human being can endure. And in my own circumstances today…the pain, fatigue and other things are simply a beasting, a pummeling without purpose or end.

    My feeling is that while God does not ‘send’ the trials, He allows them through the ‘big picture’ of requiring free will in Creation. Cancer, catastrophe and unspeakable cruelty seem to strike at random, and that randomness is, in fact the analog of the free will in our souls – to choose the Light, or the darkness.

    For Him to send the trials is, to be, far to deterministic a paradigm in what seems to be a stochastic Creation. The involvement of the Almighty on that level would appear to at least cripple if not invalidate the purpose of free will.

    So, where’s God? He’s standing by us, that we can turn to Him in whatever situation we find ourselves. He has the resources to help us through, or at least let us be tortured to death in some kind of grace.

    Sorry about the long comment. This is something I’ve had a lot of time to think about. Lying on your side in teeth-grinding pain, the only remotely ‘comfortable’ position, and watching the digital clock change numbers in the wee hours of the morning is a great way to develop theological underpinnings for a continued fight. But on the whole, I don’t recommend it.

    #2 at FMF this week.

    https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2016/10/your-dying-spouse-216-lethal-legacy-fmf.html

    1. Thanks for your long comment, Andrew. I don’t think everything in our life is a test, not at all. God is with us always and helps us along the way no matter what we are facing. And he has a wonderful way to create good things out of our chaos. Praying for peace and healing grace for you.

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