How do we look at obstacles and difficult situations that get right up in our faces?
What about the person who is obstinate or verbally abusive toward us?
I started January of 2011 by asking God to change the way I viewed things in life. After all what Christian doesn’t want to be more holy or take on the attitude and views of God, right? The statement “Be careful of what you pray for” is such a cliche. That statement feels cheap, like God is looking to trick me or wanting me to go through something unnecessary. He always wants what is best for me. It’s not even in his character to give me anything that will harm me or fill me with anxiety.
Moving forward means change, positive change means looking at what doesn’t work, then purposely exchanging it for a new way of doing something that does work.
Some years ago a pastor told me, “when you find yourself in the middle of a trial don’t ask God for a way out, ask him to help you learn his lesson for you in the middle of the trial.” I really didn’t like that idea then, and I don’t like that idea today. I still don’t like trials, today I’m better at not running away from them.
There is a book in the Bible named “James.” James was the brother of Jesus. James pastored the early church in Jerusalem. He opens his letter with the statement “consider it the purest form of joy brothers when you encounter different kinds of trials.” Because the purpose of those trials are to cause us to mature, lacking nothing. That includes the trials we had nothing to do with getting ourselves into, as well as those we bring on ourselves.
Trials act as an interesting tutor. They have the tendency and ability to dig into the deepest parts of who we are, the areas that no one else usually sees. We know how to disguise these dark areas, protecting them from eye sight. Our tutor also reveals our blind spots. More often than not our emotions play a large part of the unyielding, relentless lessons our tutor requires us to master.
Just like a student in a classroom who studies his lessons is required to endure a test to prove what has been learned. Tests we encounter in life ensure our lessons have not past by without making an imprint on who we become or at the very least forming us into better students than we were before we started.
The most difficult thing about lessons in life is that for the most part they include people. I find that when trials come, they usually include a person that I don’t get along with or care too much for, fortunately this is a very short list for me. This is the point where I usually want to cut and run.
If you like to cook you may appreciate the use of a mortar and pestle. A mortar and pestle is a set of cooking tools used to crush, grind, and mix solid substances, the pestle is a heavy bat-shaped object, and the end is used for crushing and grinding. The mortar is a bowl, usually made of hard wood, ceramic or stone. The substance to be ground is placed in the mortar and ground, crushed or mixed with the pestle.
I like the picture this paints for me. Trials that include other people are the times when life and ideas don’t flow freely between two or more people. Like the pestle performing the work it’s designed for, trials that involving people have the feeling of grinding and mixing incompatible substances together until they break down and are combined as one, creating a new compound much better or more effective than the original. Both original substances are changed forever.
I am a lover of people. When someone comes into my life l view our connection as an investment, forming the person who I become, hopefully I become an investment in their lives as well. I want all my investments to have large dividends that pay often for both parties. Every encounter with people has the potential for greatness. Some investments are better than others, but all investments, good or bad, large or small, leave an imprint on each one of us.
When the lord brings abrasive or incompatible people into my life, as I yield to the trial that presses me in the mortar bowl, I’m learning to look at those trials as the better part of my journey however uncomfortable and unnatural they may be. So although these may be the most difficult of trials, they become the richest and most memorable with the greatest potential for creating in me tolerance, understanding, and humility, my personality becomes more colorful and my character stronger.
The remainder of the James passage, the second verse in chapter one says… “Because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature, lacking nothing.”
That sort of rings in my ears, mature, lacking nothing. What a lofty goal! Obviously pastor James loved people and had the desire to see people growing into their greatest potential. He wanted it so much he was willing to tell them the hard things. The same potential God has placed in each one of us. A shepherd’s heart will do that. That pastor, who talked to me about trials so many years ago is that kind of pastor, he is a man who chases after the heart of God.
Every one of us need people who aren’t afraid to tell us the hard things, speaking to the true person behind the mask we all wear when we first encounter each other. To really know who someone is takes time. It requires standing with each other as we go through tuff times instead of avoiding each other during the trials that change us. Standing with someone through trials also shows the results the lessons our trials have created in us.
I want to see things differently; I want to see difficult people differently. We should embrace difficult situations and trials, they act as a spring board for moving us on to the next season of life, as we grow into maturity.
Embrace the road to maturity. It’s worth the trial.
