Problems—we all have them. However, even though we may acknowledge the universality of human difficulties and disappointments, we have a tendency to think that our particular set of troublesome circumstances are somehow unique to us alone. While some of the details of our individual trials may be different, one can be sure that, generally speaking, others have experienced the same types of problems to a lesser or greater degree. The Bible says, “There hath no temptation (trial or testing) taken you but such as is common to man…” (1 Cor. 10:13a). Can that statement really be true? I would venture to say that not only “can” it be true, but it “is” true.
Still the question remains, “Why does God permit His children to experience frustrating and hurtful things in their lives?” Could it be that our loving Heavenly Father has a divine purpose in mind for those less than joyful periods of our lives? James Packer offers the following explanation:
Grace is God drawing sinners closer and closer to him. How does God in grace prosecute this purpose? Not by shielding us from assault by the world, the flesh, and the devil, nor by protecting us from burdensome and frustrating circumstance, not yet by shielding us from troubles created by our own temperament and psychology, but rather by exposing us to all these things, so as to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy, and to drive us to cling to him more closely.
This is the ultimate reason, from our standpoint, why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another—it is to ensure that we shall learn to hold him fast. The reason why the Bible spends so much of its time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defense, and a sure refuge and help for the weak is that God spends so much of his time showing us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and dare not trust ourselves to find or follow the right road. When we walk along a clear road feeling fine, and someone takes our arm to help us, likely we would impatiently shake him off; but when we are caught in rough country in the dark, with a storm brewing and our strength spent, and someone takes our arm to help us, we would thankfully lean on him. And God wants us to feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing, so that we may learn to lean on him thankfully. Therefore he takes steps to drive us out of self-confidence to trust in himself, to—in the classic scriptural phrase for the secret of the godly man’s life—wait on the Lord.” 1
Now that we know God’s purpose of the perplexities of life, we need to ask a second question: “What is the intended product or spiritual gain of facing troubles and trials in complete dependency upon God? Mildred Stamm offers a helpful truth in answer to our question:
A story is told of a conversation between the gravel walk and the bed of mignonette (“a genus of fragrant herbaceous plants2). You smell delightfully fragrant,” said the gravel walk to the mignonette one day. “We have been trodden on,” said the mignonette. The gravel walk answered, “Treading on me produces no sweetness. I only become harder as I am trodden on.” “Oh,” said the mignonette, “the secret is that we are crushed and bruised. Thus we give forth the sweet perfume you smell.”
Trials sometimes embitter and harden. However, if we allow God to have His way in the trials, we become mellow and sweeter through them. Through the crushing experiences our lives are filled with the fragrance of His presence.3
As we face 2017 with all of its unknowns, may we stand firmly upon the truth of First Corinthians 15:57, which states, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1. James Packer, Your Father Loves You, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986.
2. Wikipedia.
3. Mildred Stamm, Meditation Moments, (Grand Rapids: Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House), 15th Printing,
June 1974, Devotion for November 16.
