Have you suffered an injury lately? Or perhaps you have suffered a financial loss or some other thing that has tested your faith? What does the Bible say about the feelings and attitudes Christians should have toward such things?
Such experiences remind me of the promises found in Romans 5. “But we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience . . . because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
The tribulations described here no doubt refer mainly to trials we experience in taking our stand for the Gospel. These may take many forms, including persecution, hardship, losses, and trials that test our faith. Material losses can even be tribulations when the enemy of our souls is testing us. And sometimes the Lord tests our faithfulness. We recall the testings of Job as God permitted Satan to trouble Job.
One morning in my private devotions I was considering the above passage from Romans 5, especially the phrase “but we glory in tribulations.” I found myself trying to explain away the very obvious meaning of glorying in tribulations. Certainly God does not intend for us to boast or rejoice in tribulations or trials, does He? But “boast” and “rejoice” are the exact meanings of glory.
I thought of the admonition in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” So we should give thanks through every circumstance, but not necessarily for the circumstance itself?
I do not believe that the Lord intends for us to proclaim, “Praise the Lord; I broke my leg” after a jolting fall. But glorying in tribulation still means that I should be thankful that the Lord has allowed me to be tested-yes, thankful for the experience itself!
Why should we be thankful for the experience of tribulation itself? Romans 5 says the experience, properly faced, brings patience followed by experience and hope. Certainly patience, experience, and hope are great blessings. We would not want our lives to be without them, would we?
As I meditated on this new thought, another Scripture came to my mind. “He that glorieth, let
him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). Now that sets our glorying in true perspective. Glorying in tribulation is not God-honoring unless we glory in the Lord. The Stoic, for example, glories in tribulation also. But he glories in his own ability to “grin and bear it.” The Christian glories in that the Lord can bring blessings from every tribulation. Any benefit from the experience can be credited to the Lord.
As I meditated further on glorying in tribulations, I began to think of various experiences in my own life that could be labeled as tribulations. Why had I not received more blessings from them? Why had they draggged me down instead of working patience, experience, and hope? Was it because I had not gloried in tribulations, rejoicing that the Lord was working in my life? After all, God’s Word says, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:5, 6).
If I could, through the eyes of faith, see God’s eternal perspective in my tribulations, then I could truly glory in them and glorify God in enduring them.
The Lord flooded my soul with Holy Spirit enlightenment concerning the purpose of trials and temptations as I considered Romans 5:1-5. But that still does not seem to take care of the pain and hurt that invariably come with tribulations. Am I still not trusting the Lord sufficiently? Am I not supposed to feel the pain? Then I remembered that “no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees” (Hebrews 12:11, 12).
Further, I remembered that our Lord was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He understands the initial pain and struggle in tribulations. It is then that He expects me to look up to Him. Then His grace is sufficient. Then He will work a miracle of patience in my life. Faith and trust in Him is indeed the victory that overcomes the world!
Roger Berry