The question why does God allow trials and tribulations is a very common one even amongst believers.
So why do we go through these trials and tribulations? Why does God allow Christians go through Trials, tribulations, difficulties, and challenges?
Everything that happens in your life as a Christian happens for a reason including the trails you go through. God knew that they were going to happen before they happened. Because he sees the end from the beginning and your steps are ordered by him. (Psalm 37:23).
God allow us to go through these trials and tribulations because they were never intended to destroy us but rather they are meant to be a blessing to us.
There are no mistakes him. It might look a bit challenging at the beginning, but if you can trust him enough to stand still you’ll see that indeed everything is working for your good.
He knows exactly what you’re going through. God is not wicked neither is he unconcerned, nor Partial.
God knew Job’s state, in fact he was there when it all started but he kept quiet and allowed the devil have his way yet he instructed him not to touch his life. He knew what he had prepared for him in the future. So all he wanted was for Job to come out strong so he will make his later end greater than his beginning.
I used to wonder as well, why Christians go through challenging times and different trials here and there, and then I used to think God was unconcerned about us. But then he gave me an illustration using students.
Let’s take a look the illustration below for a better understanding.
Generally, Students move from one class, level or stage to the other and this is usually done by taking part in an examination after which they will either be promoted to the next class, level or stage, or repeat or stay in the same class. Whether you will be promoted or remain in the same class depends on your on your level of preparation.
Why does God allow Trials and Tribulations?
To Achieve a Sound and Potent Character of Faith
Just like the students needs to take part in an examination in order to be promoted, so do we need these trials and challenges to be promoted into the next level our Christian character in order to come to the place of maturity. Thereby achieving a sound and potent character of faith.
We prepare in this context by Exercising our faith through patience In the midst of these trials and tribulations holding onto the word of God with the assurance that our suffering of this present time cannot be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).
If you’re not faced with challenges, trials and persecution how would you know that your faith can actually stand the test of time. Sometimes you think you trust God enough until you’re faced with challenges then you will realize how faithful you can be or how faithful you are.
The trials and tribulations are meant to be a stepping stone and not a hindrance. So until you start seeing these challenges and trials as Stepping Stones to your glory, they will keep standing as a hindrance to your glory.
Just like the students, some will definitely go through the preparation processes involved in order to be promoted. Like Job, they will refuse to curse God but remain steadfast in the midst of the preparations when they become tough. Because they don’t want remain in the same level while those they were once ahead of meets up with them at that same level. Because they don’t want to remain baby Christians, they don’t want be taking milk when they should be chewing bone.
While others may decide to go hangout with friends and forget about their preparations. When it becomes too stressful for them. They may to pull out and tell their parents that they are tired of going to school.
Trust me, i have been a student and i’m still one. So i understand how examination processes can be. I remember during examination period in my college days, i and my friends normally stay together.
they’ll all come to my house the moment it’s few weeks to the examination, and we barely sleep for three hours at night before dawn, especially if the course has to do with calculations. And after exams we’ll all be looking like we’ve been starving for months.
We never saw those processes as a burden because we understood that they were actually stepping stones to the excellent results that we desired. And if we didn’t go through those processes we could remain at the same level or worse still get an extra year. We wanted to make our parents proud.
In order for you to get to that place of faith were you are not moved by whatever the devil throws at you. To that point were you become like Jesus Christ whom when he was tempted of the devil was unshaken.
Then you must understand that the trials and tribulations are not meant to destroy you but to build you up. So you can come out stronger than ever and fearless because like gold you’ve been tried. Job said: but he Knoweth the way that i take when he hath tried me, i shall come forth as gold (Job 23:10).
The Need For a Total reliance on him (Brokenness)
Brokenness
Brokenness simply means being able to come out of our flesh that keeps us from being all God wants to be in us and through us. He wants to remove from us our selfishness, pride, and our independence nature. God wants us to depend on him completely.
If i and my friends knew that we could handout and play the way we wanted, paying less attention to our studies and still get an excellent result at the end of the day, we wouldn’t have bothered ourselves going through all those sleepless nights.
We knew what would happen if we were not serious with our studies so we were focused and we refused to see the pain but rather the end result.
if you refuse to see the challenges and trials as a process that you must go through, you will never be able to come to that point where you can take up your faith as a shield to quench the fiery dart of the devil. (Ephesians 6:16). Until you are ready to stand and go through the process you’ll forever be his punching back.
If you get everything you want, the way you want, and at anytime you want, there won’t be need for praying, seeking God, or being broken. There won’t be need for Thanksgiving or showing gratitude to God.
Tell me, what is the need to call upon God when you can get everything you want the way you want them, and at the time you want? There will be no need to show appreciation because you didn’t actually pray for them but they just came because you needed them, you didn’t have to pray or fast.
Sometimes, God lets some things happen to us so we can run to him. Because if he let us get what we want all the time without his help, we will not acknowledge is place in our life. We’ll think we got everything by ourselves.
God does not like his glory shared, he will never mince his glory for anything (Isaiah 42:8), because he is a Jealous God (Exodus 34:14) and that is why he is a God of process. Instead, he does them in such a way that after we must have gone through the process and have stepped on those trials and challenges and walked over them to our glory, we’ll always look back and appreciate him realizing that we wouldn’t have come that far by ourselves. In that way, whenever we remember where we were, where we are now and where God is taking us to, we’ll always have reasons to glorify his name.
Disobedience
Disobedience Robs us of our inheritance and our place with God. Ask King Saul he’ll explain better. The word of God shouldn’t be traded for anything. It must be priceless in your heart. Whenever you disobey, you create room for the devil to strike.
A careful study of the life of the children of Israel will make you understand that whenever they sinned against the Lord, he delivered them up to their enemies.
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and forgot the Lord their God and served Baalim and the grooves. Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of Chushanrishathaim King of Mesopotamia and they served him eight years. (Judges 3:7-8). In verse 12 again they still did evil and this time the Lord strengthened the hand of the king of Moab against them. In chapter 6:1 they still did evil in his sight and this time he delivered them into hand of the Midianites seven year.
They were greatly impoverished because of the Midianites and this was as a result of their disobedience to God’s instructions regarding his word. Still in chapter 13:1 they did evil again and this time they suffered forty long years in the hands of the philistines. They paid dearly each time they disobeyed God.
If you want to see the blessings of God in your life then you must be obedient to his word, because obedience to God always brings blessings to us, you must never compromise it not for anything. You must be patient in obedience even in the face of the trials challenges that you’re going through.
To encourage others
And not only so, but we also glory in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Romans 5:3-5).
Now that you have come forth as pure gold because you have been tried (Job 23:10), you now understand better, you’ve become Fearless, confident and stronger than ever. You have the responsibility of sharing your experience with other people who are facing their own trials because it is a process that every believer who desires a mature Christian character and a potent faith must go through.
When they see where you are, they wonder if they can ever get there. Sometimes they may even say God is partial but by the time you share your experience with them and they realize that you went through those same challenges and trials they are going through now, they will be strengthened to carry on knowing that one day they will also overcome, and this will also help them to be steadfast believing and hoping that if God can do it for you then he‘ll also do it for them. Never be ashamed of sharing your experience, you never can tell whose life you’ll be saving with that story.
Trial and Tribulations; how do they actually change me?
(The process of refining gold)
The gold melting process where the gold is heated up and the impurities floats to the surface can be used to best describe how these trials and challenges do actually change us (1 peter 1:6-7). The way the gold is heated up and the impurities floats to the surface and are separated from the main gold in order to get the pure gold, the same way does the trials and challenges heat up our lives in order to achieve a sound character of faith.
during this heating process Our weaknesses (sin, wavering faith, doubt etc) come to the surface and are separated like the chaff from the grain so we might be found onto praise and honor and glory at the appearing Christ Jesus (1 peter 1:7).
Conclusion
Now You understand better. So when next someone asks why does God allow trials and tribulations? you know why. If going through these trials and tribulations were unnecessary God wouldn’t have allowed them to happen. Every believer that wants maturity, godly character and a sound faith must go through these trials.
Trials are not a curse, they are meant to be a blessing to us because they produce maturity. The progression of trials produces perseverance, and perseverance, maturity. (James 1:3-4). The result of perseverance under trials is a mature character and a sound faith.
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