Who Are You When Faced With Trials?

Have you ever heard that saying that you know who you really are when you’re faced with hard times?

I think it’s unfair to say we’re who we really are when we’re faced with the hardest situation we’ve faced to date.

Being faced with trials, although it’s a constant of life, is tasking for everyone. I hardly know of anyone who, when faced with trials, immediately handles it with total grace and flair. Trials tend to come out of left field and we’re seldom prepared to face the challenges the season will bring. It’s only natural that trials will bring out the worse in all of us; after all, humans are creatures of comfort and no one willingly walks into hardship.

I do think how we learn to deal with and what we learn from hardship does say more about who we are or who we’ve become. Some folks become better people while others become bitter people. I think that’s more of the defining moment: what we do with the lemons life will inevitably hand us, not how we react when the lemon is thrown into our hands like a hot potato.

I’ve been facing hard times for a little bit over a year now. I’ve been dealing with the deep ache of a dream unfulfilled in addition challenging experiences that stretched me and required a lot of spiritual growth. Through all of this I’ve both reflected on how I handle trials and how I’d like to handle certain aspects of hardship in the future.

I’ve also thought about who I want to become when faced with any trial. Do I want to let the trial take me over and lean into bitterness, or do I want to continuously ask God to use this hardship for my good and mold me into being more like Christ?

Trials will change us, but we get to choose what we’d like to do with that change. We can either ask God to join us in the fire and use it to purify us or we can go at it with all of our strength. The former requires us to be prepared to wrestle with God while we’re in the fire. The latter deepens the pain we feel while the fire consumes all of our strength. A fire can either be devastating or purifying, relying on God always leads to our purification.

In the fire we get to choose to allow God to search the depths of our hearts—those places we hide from others and from ourselves—be real with Him and with ourselves, and to realize that we are helpless.

This series is going to be about the things I’m learning through trials I’ve faced and been facing. It’s not going to be perfect and it’s not going to have much of any answers. It’s going to be more of a reflection of my process. I hope to reach back to it one day and maybe I’ll see glimpse of who I chose to become when faced with trials.

“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1:7