The treasure of trials
“But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.” — Job 23:10
‘Dear brothers and sisters, I pray God may open your eyes and let you see what hidden treasures he bestows on us in the trials from which the world thinks only to flee.’ — St John of Avila
Around this time last year, I found myself facing one of the hardest experiences of my life.
It all started with a phone call on an ordinary Monday evening at 5:45pm.
From the tone of the doctor’s voice, I instantly knew that something was wrong.
“Your recent test results unfortunately came back positive, and we’ll need to refer you to the fast-track diagnostic team to check whether you have cancer or not.”
As soon as I hung up the phone, everything felt like it had changed. It was as if the lights had suddenly gone out, and I was left flailing in the dark.
Moments before, I had been happily getting on with my life. Now, I had no real certainty of how long I would have that life.
As much as I didn’t want to even accept that this was the situation I was now in, I knew I had to walk through it, and that I had no hope of making it to the other side without Jesus.
There are times in life when you realise that there really is nowhere else to turn other than to Him. When the things that form the blocks we build our lives with—relationships, health, jobs, plans and dreams—are suddenly gone, and you are brought face to face with your fragility.
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.” — Matthew 7:24–25
Jesus says that the storms of life are inevitable. No matter who we are, all of us will face difficulty, disappointment and disaster of some kind. When these storms suddenly rise up against us, they expose the foundation that we have chosen to build our lives on.
If it is anything other than Jesus, we will collapse into ruin. But if it is Jesus, we are safe, forever.
Suffering brings us to the end of ourselves—and it is there that we find Jesus. When we have no other choice but to cling to Him, we are closer to Him than ever. Our distracted minds regain a single focus on Him, and our disordered hearts rediscover their true desire for Him.
It is so much better to go through a trial that draws us so inextricably close to Jesus rather than enjoy a thousand comforts that only distract us from Him.
The unwanted gift
In a mysterious way, trials are a gift. We never want them, but we need them. Without them, we will never become the people that God has made, saved and called us to be.
God isn’t committed to our convenience, but to conforming us into the image of Jesus. He will always prioritise our long-term holiness over our short-term happiness. He knows which parts in us need to die so that our whole beings can flourish, and He is relentless in cutting out of our lives anything that threatens this.
It’s only when we become holy like Him that we can live in the way He made us to. When we become truly holy—when we become more and more like Jesus—we become truly happy: content, joyful and peaceful people who glimmer ever more brightly with His glory.
If gold is left in the ground, it never reaches its full, magnificent potential. In the same way, if we bury ourselves in the comforts, pleasures and ease of the world, we will never become the glorious people that God desires us to be.
Only when we surrender to God and allow ourselves to be placed in the refining fire of His love will we come out gleaming in His holiness.
Nearly all of the most memorable encounters and experiences I’ve had with God have come not on the peaks when things are going well, but in the valleys where things are really hard.
I love the mountaintops; but I’m more thankful for the valleys.
It’s only when the black shadows of fear and uncertainty have loomed over me that I become more aware of Jesus’ light shining in the darkness, His presence comforting me in my anxiety, His voice guiding me in my confusion.
God does some of His deepest and most transformative work in us through the suffering He allows us and helps us to go through. He leads and accompanies us into the wilderness so that all our pretend, self-sourced strength withers away under the beating sun of our trials, and we are brought to a place of complete surrender to Him.
And in that place of utter weakness, we find that we can trust in nothing else other than God. We finally see that He alone is our strength, our source, everything that we need and desire.
He does this because He loves us. We only have to look at Jesus to see that this is true.
The suffering Saviour
God is love. The Father, the Son and the Spirit love one another perfectly in never-ending joy and delight. In their perfect love for one another, the Father enabled the Son in the power of the Spirit to endure the suffering of the cross, so that we might be reconciled to Him—saved from sin and death, and freed into fullness of life.
We trust in a God who doesn’t look at a distance at our suffering, but who has willingly stepped into it Himself.
Apart from sin, Jesus experienced the whole spectrum of human life in a fallen world. He lived the perfect life—but it wasn’t a privileged, luxurious and out-of-touch kind of life. His joy was complete and His peace secure, but He was also the ‘man of sorrows’ and a ‘suffering servant’.
He experienced exhaustion, frustration, hunger, thirst, anger and loss. He wept. He was deeply moved by the suffering people He encountered at every turn. His love was never self-preserving; He loved others selflessly at the expense of His comfort, His reputation—even His very life.
Jesus went through it all for us to rescue us from the destruction of sin and death. He suffered so that we might be saved.
Now, we must do the same for Him and for others.
Every challenge, every pain, every loss, every circumstance is an opportunity to follow Jesus’ example in learning how to fully trust, obey and depend on the Father.
As we do this, we catch the attention of those around us. People notice that even in the face of our trials, we stand firm in the peace, power and presence of God. They feel able to trust us by sharing their own pain with us.
The way we approach suffering—seeing it as a hard but necessary part of our obedience to Jesus and becoming like Him—is one of the most compelling ways to show Him to others.
The certain future
We don’t suffer in detached stoicism or determined heroism—we can choose to go through suffering with joy, because we are completely confident in Jesus to sustain us, lead us and bring us safely into an unimaginably glorious future.
‘Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.’ — Romans 8:18
No more tears.
No more pain.
No more sickness.
No more disasters.
No more death.
Endless peace.
Endless joy.
Endless delight.
Endless life.
Endless glory.
This is the firm, fast-approaching future for those who are in Jesus. He will return to put all wrongs right, to make all things new, and to reign with us over a fully-restored universe.
No matter how dark our circumstances might feel right now, the light of Jesus is always shining around us, and the glory of Heaven is always glimmering on the horizon ahead.
Trust in Jesus
Mercifully, after months of tests, I found out that I didn’t have cancer.
But I know that there will be more trials ahead of me: more unexpected storms, more dark valleys, more barren wildernesses, and ultimately an inevitable death that I will have to go through.
It’s the same for all of us. It is simply the way that life in this fallen world works.
But if we are in Jesus—if we believe in Him, love Him and live for Him—we can go through all our days with Him in peace, confidence and joy.
He is with us (Matthew 28:20).
He is for us (Romans 8:31).
He has made us forever right with Him (Romans 5:1–2).
He carries our burdens (1 Peter 5:7).
He shows us the way (Psalm 32:8).
He is our strength (Psalm 46:1).
He bottles up our tears (Psalm 56:8).
He listens to us (Psalm 34:17–18).
He weeps with us (John 11:35).
He prays for us (Hebrews 7:25).
He will bring us safely home (John 14:3).
And through it all, He is transforming us to become like Him, so that we’re ready to be with Him forever.
Whatever you face—either today or one day—take heart, trust in Jesus, and treasure the trials that bring you closer to Him.
Love,
Theo
