Relationships Series:Tests of Faith
Tests of faith are hard on us, especially if we are not growing. Remember, if you spend your time complaining when you are going through hard experiences, you will become stuck instead of growing from it.
If you are in a relationship, it can be even worse if both people aren’t on the same page at different levels of development. If the divide is too great, the relationship may dissolve.
Yasmin Hogshed said,
“Holding onto hope when everything is dark, is the greatest test of faith.”
To illustrate this quote imagine yourself going into a room and flipping the switch to turn the light on, but the bulb has burned out, so you are trying to avoid hurting yourself as you find your way through.
The book of Job in the Bible is a good example of what happens when our faith is tested:
- Our so-called friends may give us the wrong advice and make our ordeal worse.
- Relatives might undermine our faith with their comments. Job’s wife told him to curse God and die.
- We may lose friends during our time of testing because they don’t know what to say, how to help us, or may have unresolved grief issues in their lives. Our predicament may remind them of their own buried problems.
It is not good for you to stop progressing through the test because you will not grow as long as you delay. You will be stuck. This happens a lot when you grieve the death of a loved one, especially when it is a sudden passing.
If you don’t get to say good-bye, there is a lack of closure and you suffer in your grief more than you would otherwise. It is an extra burden you have to carry around that slows the healing process.
Another obstacle that can make our tests of faith worse is when multiple bad things are happening in a short span of time. For instance, if you lose your job, then you are evicted from where you are living, then the stress builds in your relationships perhaps hurting each other----maybe even divorce as a result.
You didn’t have time to process one occurrence before the next one happened. So, instead of going through one bad thing you may be assaulted by several at once.
The good news is that if we turn to God for help, he will give us strength and other benefits to get us through the horrible things we face. The Bible says he is the God of all comfort no matter what is happening.
We don’t have to be alone in the trials we face.
Action Point:
Look for people you can trust who care about you. You don’t need a lot of people like this, but you do need the right ones to help you through the rough spots.
Cry out to God in your time of bad experiences. David did, in the book of Psalms, and he became the greatest king of Israel because he put his trust in God. He made a lot of mistakes just like we do, but God helped him----and he will help you also.
Where you place your trust will determine how you grow and heal from each test of faith.
