How Your Trials And Troubles Are Good For You

We naturally want to avoid trials and troubles, but these are allowed by God and are actually good for us.

Good to be Afflicted?

We naturally want to avoid trials and troubles, but these are allowed by God and are actually good for us. Afflictions and troubles are bad, right? Well, not really. Quite the opposite is true. The Psalmist wrote, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). How is that good to be afflicted, we might ask? It was so good because he and we “might learn your statues,” and those are found in the Bible. If trials send us to the Word of God more often, that’s good because that’s where we’ll find help for our situation. We find comfort and encouragement in the promises of God like He promises to never, ever forsake us or leave us (Duet 31:8; Jer 29:11; Heb 13:5). When we’re passing through trials and troubles, we suddenly become much more interested in God, in prayer, and in His Word (the Bible). These hard times make us seek God for His help, but they also humble us before our Lord and Savior. If our troubles humble us, then that’s a good thing because God sends His grace to the humble, but He resists the proud of heart (James 4:6).

The lesson is, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word” (Psalm 119:67). That’s what afflictions, trials and troubles do. God “does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men” (Lam 3:33) unless there is very good reason. I remeber one man who complained that he had to fix another flat tire, but when he changed it, he noticed brake fluid leaking from his brake line. If not for that flat tire, the man would have driven off only to shortly lose his brakes! Somehow, God is able to use evil for good (Gen 50:20; John 3:16).

Reflection

Our problems can help us focus more easily about what choices we’ve made that turned out bad and the consequences to match it. If our trials make us change or rearrange our priorities, mainly to serving God, then our problems have been good because they’ve lead us to a beneficial outcome. We know God does not indiscriminately allow such hardships without good reasons (Lam 3:33), so examine yourself, examine your life, and reflect on why certain things may be happening. We could likely be reaping what we’ve sown and God wants to point this out to us. When our vehicle starts to have problems, we look under the hood, so when troubles come, it doesn’t hurt to look under our own “hoods” and see where we’re going in life and if we’re headed in the wrong direction. If it’s necessary, and it often is, God will send storms in our life. These can be storms of reflection, storms of direction, storms of correction, and storms of perfection, depending on where we’re at with our walk with Christ.

Discipline & Love

God is very pleased when we’re going through trials and we thank and praise Him for them as are to thank Him for all things (Rom 8:28). It’s like praising God in the storm…while the storm’s still pounding us. That’s faith when you can praise God when everything around you looks like a sinking ship, but everything that’s over our head is under His feet. He will never allow things that would hurt His children because He loves us and disciple is proof His love. We know that “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb 12:6), so rejoice if He disciplines you. That means He loves you for “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline” (Heb 12:7)? That’s what human parents do; they discipline their children (hopefully) because they care for them, but God is even more loving and is a better parent than any of us could ever hope to be.

To Comfort Others

When someone’s suffering from something that you’ve went through, whom better to comfort them than you?! You know what it might feel like and so to go to someone who is suffering for something that you went through. When you do, the person you’re trying to comfort will know you understand better than most people do, particularly those who haven’t been through what the two of you have been through. Suffering allows us to give comfort to others the very same comfort we received from God and from others for it is God “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2nd Cor 1:4). Isn’t it a good reason to suffer so that we can help alleviate someone else’s suffering? We can “pass on” this same comfort to those around us, so in this way, suffering is never wasted.

Conclusion

We must trust God even in the silence in our suffering, knowing that He is working everything out for our best, even when it doesn’t feel like it. When the disciples were afraid for their lives in the storm, they should have realized (we should realize), Jesus was with them in the boat. Did they really think He’d let the boat sink and they’d all drown, including Jesus!? The silence of God is not the shunning of God. He will not forsake His own children any more than a mother would forsake their own baby at birth. God is faithful and will not ever abandon us (John 6:37, 39), so even in our troubles, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). If you’re feeling crush, then God is nearer to you than He is most!

If you have still not trusted in Christ, everything will work out for your worst since you are not a child of God, loved by God and called by God (Rom 8:28). God will say no to you regarding your entering into the Kingdom, so I pray, even now, that you might repent today and trust in Christ or face God’s judgment after death (Heb 9:27), or at Christ’s appearance (Rev 20:12-15), whichever comes first.

Here is some related reading for you: How to Thank God For Your Sorrows and Problems

Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^® (ESV^®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Tagged as: Romans 8:28, Sorrows, Tests, Trials, Tribulation, Troubles