“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” — James 1:2-4
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At the end of our fall semester in college, we would have an annual week-long fitness test. Our entire team would compete in various strength exercises and endurance trials, with the goal being to reveal what each of us was “made of.”
Similarly, trials in life can shape and reveal what we are truly “made of.” As C.S. Lewis said, “I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that He gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect.”
Life’s trials can often be seen as suffering, and indeed they are painful. Losing my dad in my early 20s was devastating. However, it revealed something unique to me that I do not know would have been uncovered otherwise: how God loves me.
You see, God sees the real me, the one that isn’t marred by sin and shame. We live in a post-Eden reality, a world where sin, shame and suffering run rampant. Yet, what the enemy meant for evil God uses for good (Genesis 50:20). He uses trials as a means to make us perfect. The word “perfect” here does not mean flawless; it means to be made whole and complete.
God sees the person inside the stone block and longs to bring that true self out for all to see.
— Tyler Keele, Tennessee Smokies chaplain
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