Don't be unsettled by your trials. They’re there to learn from so you can become more like Jesus.
SHAUNA: Hi, I’m Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Doesn’t life sometimes seem like, I don’t know, one long, unending string of trials? Like no sooner is one problem behind you, then another crops up? Well, here’s Joni with some words of encouragement from the Word of God.
JONI: Well, listen to these uplifting words by the Apostle Paul who says in 1 Thessalonians 3, “We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we were destined for them.” I’m sorry, but that last sentence just has to make you laugh. It’s like Paul is stating an obvious fact that every believer, every follower of Jesus clearly understands: “For you know quite well that we were destined for [these trials].” You know I laughed because it may have been obvious to the early church, but it certainly is not obvious to us. Most Christians think: You mean, we’re destined for a hard life? But Paul does not stop on that morbid note. He adds: Be strengthened. Be encouraged in your faith. And don't let trials unsettle you. We are destined for these hardships. In other words, friend, life is supposed to be difficult. Yet it is amazing how many people believe that life should be easy. We bemoan the enormous weight of our problems, feeling as though difficulties are, I don’t know, a unique kind of affliction that shouldn’t be. We feel that tough trials have somehow been especially visited upon us and not upon others.
But friend, God has wired this world to be difficult. God knows it’s a broken world, and life is a series of problems to be solved. Yes, solving problems is a painful process, but it is this whole process that gives your life meaning. Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct.” Isn’t that the truth! And the psalmist said long before him in Psalm 119, “It is good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” And elsewhere in that same Psalm, he says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.” Friend, this is why God destined us for trials. His purpose in redeeming us is not to make our lives happy, or healthy, or free of trouble. His purpose is to make you more like Jesus. And if Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered [as it says of him in the book of Hebrews], then we certainly are not above our master. So be strengthened and encouraged in your faith. Don't be unsettled by your trials. You know quite well you are destined for them, and for good reasons. Alan Redpath writes about that good reason when he says, “There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch you until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to you. And if it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose.”
SHAUNA: Friend, once you truly know—and truly embrace—that life is supposed to be difficult, then life is difficult no longer. Because if God has destined us for trials, like 1 Thessalonians 3 tells us, then we know that while those trials are not for our pleasure; they are for our profit. So, let’s not waste them! Once you accept this truth, you transcend it. And we want to pray for you during your trials. So go to joniradio.org and let us know how we can pray. Remember, that’s joniradio.org! Thanks for listening today on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope.
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