The Purpose of Problems

“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2).

God is not the author and originator of the problems, trials, and sufferings that beset us. But as the Creator committed to our sanctification and our good, he uses every experience redemptively.

Adversity strengthens character. The writer to the Hebrews realistically observes that: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant [note he doesn’t minimize the pain factor]; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11). In fact, he puts it even plainer: “[God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).

God is more interested in our character than our comfort, more interested in whom we become than what we get, and more interested in what we need than what we want. The apostle James can therefore present the revolutionary exhortation to us: “Count it all joy, my brethren when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3). How exceedingly difficult! Yet how very important!

What is vital is not what circumstances do to us, but what we do to them. Will we allow them to be miserable, distressing, and disruptive intruders to be resented? Or will we reinterpret them positively as friends with something to teach us?

In Jeremiah 18:4-6, God describes himself as the potter and us as the clay in his hands. A potter works clay with consummate skill – chipping, chopping, beating, and squeezing it. He fashions it on his wheel and refines it with his scalpel. The clay doesn’t have an easy time, but in the potter’s hands it becomes something beautiful. In the same way, God uses our problems and trials to form us as it seems good to him.

Reflection

Look at the problems you listed yesterday. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you consider them as “friends” that God can use to shape you. As you pray and listen, note down any ways that God can use your difficulties to work something good.