How to Find Wisdom
Tom Shrader walks through James 1:2-8, unpacking why trials are inevitable, varied, and designed by God to mature the believer's faith through endurance. He explains that wisdom in the midst of suffering is not general knowledge but a Spirit-given clarity available to anyone who asks God in genuine faith without doubting. The teaching closes with five practical responses to trials: pray for wisdom, remember God is in control, learn from the experience, share your burden with others, and return to where you last saw God at work.
“Trials are what God uses to make you strong — the testing of our faith produces endurance.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2006)
Recorded: 2006 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 48 min
Themes: wisdom, suffering, trials, faith, prayer, endurance, trusting god, perseverance, going through hard times, feeling lost, new believer, questioning god, struggling with doubt, young adult, facing uncertainty, walking through grief
Scripture: James 1:1-8, Job 5:7, Job 28:20-28, John 9:1-3, Proverbs 1:1-7, Proverbs 2:6, Isaiah 55:8-9, Colossians 1:15-17, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 7:7-8, Philippians 1:9, Ephesians (referenced generally), Colossians (referenced generally)
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, pneumatology, spirit-given wisdom, soteriology, theodicy, why god allows suffering, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
Introduction
Open your Bibles, if you will, to James chapter 1. I said to somebody the other day that Super Bowl Sunday is not a national holiday, but it really almost is — it's on the brink of it. I noticed I've been trying, though there's no evidence to support this next statement, to eat correctly for a while, and nothing seems to be happening much. I noticed all week at our house there's this buildup, this accumulation of stuff that I'm not supposed to eat, all saved for today. So it's going to be an interesting day.
The last thing I did this morning as I was leaving my office — I don't know what made me do this — I went to Google and typed in, "What will Americans eat on Super Bowl Sunday?" I just thought we'd see what happens. Here's what came up: Super Bowl Sunday is the Super Bowl of snacking. This is not about meals; it's about snacks. Research by the Calorie Control Council — and what is that, exactly? — and the Snack Food Association finds that Americans will eat 30 million pounds of snacks today. That breaks down to 11.2 million pounds of potato chips, 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 4.3 million pounds of pretzels, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn, and 2.5 million pounds of nuts.
Now listen to this. The average armchair quarterback will consume 1,200 calories and 50 grams of fat from snacks alone, not counting meals. The Calorie Control Council reveals that potato chips are the snacking favorite and will account for 37 billion calories and 1.8 billion grams of fat today. Those 1.8 billion grams of fat nationwide are equivalent to 4 million pounds of fat — and 4 million pounds of fat is equal to the weight of 13,000 NFL offensive linemen at 300 pounds each.
Now, apparently that's not enough. The council wants to help you. The Calorie Control Council recommends pre-planning your Super Bowl event and menu to include non-fat, low-fat chips and dip. For instance, choosing fat-free potato chips for the big game could save up to 300 calories per person. Here's the problem with that: you might as well eat this bulletin if you're going to eat a fat-free chip. I'd rather just chomp on this thing. So my point is simply this: we don't care what they say. Enjoy this day, have a blast, eat, and make it a very special day.
For some of you — and this is serious — I know that when you leave today you're going to be with friends from work or neighbors, many of whom don't know Christ. Oftentimes in the course of a day like this there will be a moment when things quiet down and you'll have a chance to talk. Just pray that God gives you an opportunity today and gives you the right words to share.
Background on the Letter of James
Now, James chapter 1. We looked last week at the first three or four verses. We'll summarize them today and unpack them a little further. Remember, we said the date of this letter would be somewhere between 45 and 50 AD, which would make it chronologically the earliest of the writings of the New Testament.
The author is identified in the very first word of the book: James. He identifies himself this way — "a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." We know that this James is the half-brother of Jesus. By half-brother we mean that Mary was His mother, but she was a virgin who gave birth to Jesus. After giving birth to Jesus, she and Joseph had intimate relations on at least six occasions, because we have four brothers who are named, four boys, and sisters — plural. James would be the oldest of these.
James was one of the pillars of the early church along with John and Peter. At the first Jerusalem council — the first time the church faced a real crisis — it was James who presided over that council. It was James who offered the final declaration and the findings of that council. So he is a central figure to the early church.
The audience is identified right there in verse 1 as well: "To the twelve tribes who are scattered abroad." That really sets the tone, especially for the first part of this letter. James almost instantaneously goes from zero to a hundred. He identifies himself and then goes straight to: "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." That seems almost like a conclusion more than an introduction — but he goes right to it, and there's good reason for that.
The Scattered Audience and Their Trials
If we understand the audience — the twelve tribes scattered or dispersed abroad — these are Jewish believers living outside of Palestine. It seems reasonable to assume they are scattered for a few reasons. First, some of them experienced persecution and fled. Second, for others it may not have been outright physical persecution, but once a Jew converted to the Christian faith, his family would have literally held a funeral for him or her and wanted nothing more to do with them. It would have cost them not only their family, but all their business and commerce, which was shared among the Jewish community. It would have been virtually impossible for most of them to continue functioning within Palestine.
And then I assume that some are dispersed out of obedience — that they heard Jesus say "Go and make disciples," that they heard Jesus say His power would be displayed in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the remotest parts of the earth.
Welcoming Trials as Friends
James writes to a group of people who were at home and are now abroad, having left with little or nothing physically or financially, and perhaps with strained relationships. Their life was characterized by difficulty and hardship. It makes total sense, then, for James to write, "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials," because that is exactly what they are living — all sorts of trials.
J.B. Phillips paraphrases verse 2 this way: "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resist them as intruders, but welcome them as friends." That is a strange thing to say. He is saying: don't act naturally, act supernaturally. Naturally, when those trials crowd into your life, you are going to want to resist them or push them away. He says don't do that — welcome them as friends.
How can anyone possibly do that? Why would anyone do that? As we said last week, the answer is in verse 3: "Because we know the testing of your faith produces endurance." These trials, these challenges — though they may not be something you would naturally welcome in the flesh — when you embrace them, they have an extraordinary effect in your life. They will prove who you really are. They will show you your faith. They will let you see God. And the result of all this testing is that you will be even stronger at the end of it.
Trials Are Inevitable, Varied, and Unexpected
From these verses, here is what we know. First, these trials are inevitable. There it is in verse 2: "When you encounter various trials." It is not "if." It is not "maybe you will, maybe you won't." It is "when they come," because they will come. He is writing to people who are likely right in the midst of them, and we can say the same thing for you and me here — you will encounter trials.
He also says they are "various" trials — literally, multi-colored trials. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. God does not issue one standardized test that fits all sizes and all shapes, as though every Christian will experience the same set of trials, the same difficulty, the same challenge. Not at all. There may be relational trials, challenges to your prestige or reputation, financial difficulties, physical challenges, tensions between husband and wife, between parents and children, between neighbors, or even between fellow believers. You can count on the fact that trials are coming. You cannot predict what those trials will be.
Third, they arrive unexpectedly — when you least expect it. That is oftentimes the testimony: things were going along so well, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, no one would have seen it coming. A man's brother recently recommended a book, and sitting down to read it, the story unfolded of a CEO of a massive global company, 20,000 employees, 53 years old, feeling reasonably well. He had a couple of small twitches, went to the doctor, and the doctor told him there was no way he had more than 100 days to live. The MRIs showed that one side of his brain was simply scrambled — and, being an avid golfer, he found grim irony in the fact that there were three golf ball-sized tumors there. He would never have expected it. He felt fine, went to the doctor, and there it was.
That is the nature of trials. They often come unexpected and unannounced. Everything is moving along, plans are in place, and then all of a sudden — they are just here.
The Purpose of Trials: Producing Maturity
Let's read the passage again: "Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." When James says "perfect," he does not mean sinless perfection. He means mature. J.B. Phillips renders it this way: "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resist them as intruders, but welcome them as friends. Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find that you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence."
What James is saying is this: after testing and testing and testing again, you grow. You mature. You draw closer to Him. Your faith becomes more real — tested again and again and again. You begin to see that what
Wisdom in the Midst of Trials
These tests are lifelong. It is not as though you pass a battery of tests and say, "I'm done." He keeps testing you and testing you and testing you. We have used the illustration before — someone has used the phrase that God knows the maximum elasticity of your faith. In other words, He knows how much you can take. So in our minds, what we picture is this: He takes you and pulls you out here, and you say, "I can't take any more," and He pulls you out further, and you say, "I can't take any more," and He pulls you out still further, and finally He says, "Yes — that's good." And we think we are done. But no, He simply loosens the band so we can start from that new point next time. We do not have to go through the whole process again from the beginning.
He knows. He will not allow you to be tested beyond what you can endure. His intention is not to destroy you. There is an important difference between a temptation that comes into your life with the purpose of bringing you down and leading you into sin, and a test, whose purpose is to reveal what is really there. We used to have, out on the east end of town, a testing ground — one of the car manufacturers had a proving ground there. The objective was to take the next year's model, put it through rigorous tests, find out what they really had, and then identify the weak points so they could strengthen them. That is exactly what these tests are designed to do.
The First Response: Ask God for Wisdom
These tests are designed to generate a response. As I close today, I want to give you five things that are part of how we can respond to them. Here is the first one, found in verse five.
*"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all generously without reproach and will be given to him."*
In the middle of all this difficulty, we can quickly lose our compass. We can become so focused on our circumstances that we genuinely lose our sense of what is going on. So James says: if any one of you lacks wisdom or understanding, let him ask God, who gives it to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he continues: *"let him ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man unstable in all his ways."*
The first thing we need when trials come — trials that affect us not only physically and financially but that begin to affect our thinking and our understanding — is to pray. If anyone lacks wisdom, all they have to do is ask.
How We Typically Pray for Wisdom
Now, I have sat in many meetings that begin with someone saying, "Why don't you go ahead and pray?" And the person praying will say, "Father, we know in Your Word that You say if any of us lack wisdom, all we have to do is ask. We have some complicated issues before us today. We have decisions that are demanding answers — God, we ask for wisdom." And if you have not done that in a meeting, perhaps you have done it individually. You say, "God, I have these decisions and I am not sure what to do. I have this school opportunity, or I could move here, or I have a career opportunity, or I am dating this person and I am confused — should I marry them or break up with them? What should I do?" And so we say, "I know somewhere in that Bible it says something about wisdom, so wherever it is, God, that is what I am claiming right now. I am asking You for wisdom — give it to me."
Obviously that is not wrong. We should pray that way. But that is not exactly what James has in mind here.
Wisdom in the Context of Trials
Look again at verse four — *"that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing"* — and then immediately verse five: *"if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask."* What James has done is link verses four and five together. So while there may be some broader, more universal application we could draw from this passage, and certainly when making decisions it makes sense to pray and ask for God's help, the context James is hammering on is the context of trials and testing — what happens when the questions and the difficulties begin to close in on you.
Perhaps you have not yet had enough life experience to fully feel the weight of this. In that case, all you have to do is watch the news — not the local news, but the national news, the big-picture things. You read about a coal mining accident. You read about a child who is abducted, molested, and killed. You read about someone who is desperately sick. I get my old high school alumni newsletter, and it has become striking to see how many of my classmates are now facing death. Or perhaps a neighbor — someone stopped me between services today to tell me their neighbor was killed this week in a car wreck. Or you get a call from the doctor. Or you watch a family torn apart by divorce, by selfishness, by distance, by children who are not speaking because of sin or because of wrongs that have not been resolved.
Why Did This Happen?
In the midst of all of that, you tend to ask a question. James Montgomery Boice writes: *"The problem James introduces is the problem we face when things don't go the way we like them or the way we planned them. It's the problem we have when we find ourselves asking: Why did this go wrong? Why did God let this happen? Why did this happen to me?"*
Boice continues: *"Of all the questions I'm asked, that is probably the one I've heard most often. Misfortune comes into our lives, unexplained tragedies occur, and we ask why. Why did this happen? Why did this happen to me?"*
Here is what I want you to see: there is nothing wrong with asking that. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Two Attitudes Toward God in Suffering
The tension comes not in asking the question, but in the attitude we have when we ask it. If I'm standing there saying, "God, why would You let this happen? I thought You were a God of love. I thought You were a sovereign God," that is one attitude — an angry, accusatory one. The other attitude, and I think the one He is asking us to have when we come to Him, is to say, "Father, I know You love me. I love You. I don't understand this. Help me see it." That is a totally different perspective. It is okay to ask the question, and when we ask it rightly, we find answers.
Why We Suffer: Life Simply Brings Trouble
We looked at this last week. Sometimes what we discover is that trials are simply part of life. Job chapter 5, verse 7 tells us, "Man is born to trouble." We have pain. We get sick. Our cars break down.
A second thing that can happen is this: if you do stupid things, there are consequences. If you smoke for thirty years, you should not be shocked if you have cancer. If you drink and drive, or drink to excess, you may well experience suffering. You may risk the stability of your family through sexual promiscuity. You may lie, or fly off the handle in anger, or out of greed invest in a junk bond, or look for some way to get rich quick. If you do stupid things, oftentimes suffering is attached to it.
Not always, by the way. It is amazing — I will sit with friends and we will talk about the dumb, dumb, dumb things we did, and we will say, "God was so gracious not to really bring the consequence of that behavior home to roost."
Trials as Spiritual Aerobics
It may also be that suffering is present in order to develop our own character, as verse 3 describes. The picture we have used over the years is one of trials as spiritual aerobics. If you go to the doctor and the doctor says you need to get into shape, the most difficult moments are those first four, five, or six times you exercise — when you go to the gym, walk, run, whatever you do. The more you have neglected yourself, the more difficult those first few times are, so difficult that it is not uncommon to either quit or simply wonder, "Why am I doing this?"
You have to remind yourself that all of this perspiration, all of this pain, all of this difficulty is for your own good. I always find that hard to get my arms around, but it is true. You push your body, and the more you push it, the better the physical result will be — you will be stronger. Trials work the same way. Trials are what God uses to make you strong. The testing of our faith produces endurance.
So if I say I want to be strong, I want to have a vibrant faith, I need to understand what that costs. There was a lady we met years ago through Grace Community Church — Mary Lamb. Many of you know Mary Lamb. I love Mary Lamb. I loved to go over to Westchester and visit her and say, "Mary, just talk to me." She would tell the most amazing stories.
David and Mary Lamb were actually the ones who built a giant orphanage, school, and church in Calcutta. I had the privilege of going to see it over twenty years ago. They had no money when they came to Calcutta. The land was a swamp — it was always going to be a swamp — and someone gave it to David precisely because it was worthless. David would go out every day and pray, "God, dry up the swamp." One day there was a flower, and the next day the ground was dry. That is the land on which that school, orphanage, and church rests.
How strong do you think her faith is? She was on the last boat out of Shanghai before the communists took over, and she saw God work again and again and again. You look at her and say, "I would love to have faith like Mary Lamb." But if you want faith like Mary Lamb, you have to have the trials, the difficulties, and the testing that Mary Lamb experienced. She did not start that way.
Suffering for God's Glory
It may also be that suffering exists for God's glory. John chapter 9 gives us a vivid example. "As Jesus passed by, He saw a man blind from birth, and His disciples asked Him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be blind?' And He said, 'It was neither this man who sinned nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him.'"
The disciples took the conventional wisdom of the day — this man must have sinned, or his parents must have sinned — and Jesus corrected them entirely. This blindness was not a result of their sin. This man was made blind so that at this point in time, Jesus could heal him, and he would become a display case for the work of God. So much of that is true in your suffering and mine.
Another case that comes to mind from the Old Testament is Job. Take people who know nothing about Scripture and say the name Job, and they will say: suffering. They may even say, "I would love to have the patience of Job." Let me tell you how to get it — you need to suffer like Job. People say they do not want to suffer like Job, and so they do not get the patience of Job. That is how they are connected. Job is known for both his suffering and his patience, and you cannot separate the two.
The Neglected Practicality of James
The patience of Job is so well known that even people who don't know Scripture will speak of it. It was suffering that produced that patience. That is why at the end of the book, Job can say, "Before all this, God, I'd heard about you. Now I've seen you." He had the theology before, but he didn't have the testing. And they all go together.
In his introduction to his commentary on the book of James, James Boyce writes that although people know about James, many don't read it. He is convinced that James is neglected simply because it is so practical. James talks about wealth and how to use it, gossip, hypocrisy, how we choose our friends, and other such practical things. We find ourselves saying, "I don't like that. Give me a good lecture on theology. Teach me about grace and justification. Better yet, let's discuss eschatology." Those subjects are interesting, but when you talk about who my friends should be, or what I do with my mouth, or my disposable income, you are messing where you shouldn't.
What James is saying is that doctrine and theology are so important precisely because they affect the way we practically live. All you have to do is ask.
Where Will Wisdom Be Found?
James chapter 1, verse 5 seems to be saying that wisdom is a vitally important — almost necessary — quality in the midst of the entanglements of life. There are moments when we desperately want to understand the world we live in and what is going on around us. Job felt exactly that. In Job 28 he writes: "Where, O where, will I find wisdom? Where does insight hide? Mortals don't have a clue, haven't the slightest idea where to look. The earth's depths say it's not here, and the ocean's echo never heard of it."
Job goes on to describe all the places we look — including wealth and every other thing we turn to — and then he returns to the same question: "So where does wisdom come from? Where does insight live? It can't be found by looking, no matter how deep you dig, no matter how high you fly. If you search through the graveyards and question the dead, they'll say we've only heard rumors of it."
In God's wisdom book, the book of Proverbs, the author states his purpose plainly: "To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of wisdom, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice, equity, to give prudence to the naive, to the youthful knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase in knowledge. A man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom." And then Proverbs 2, verse 6 adds: "For the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding."
The question, then, is not about knowing the Bible in the sense of having information. It is about knowing how to use the Bible — understanding the world around us when trials and difficulties arise and things seem to be careening out of control. When we need to pause, take a breath, get our arms around our situation quietly and put it in perspective, we go to God's Word.
Paul's Consistent Prayer for Wisdom
In the books of Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, Paul makes essentially the same statement three times. Philippians 1:9 represents it well: "And this I pray, that your love abound yet more and more in knowledge." What Paul is praying for, at its core, is wisdom. He is saying that for anyone who lacks wisdom in the midst of trials and difficulties, all they have to do is ask.
When we talk about asking God, the word that naturally comes to mind is prayer. And it is plain that we are far more prone to pray in difficult times than in good times. That is exactly why this instruction makes such sense in its context.
Crisis as the Catalyst for Change
Consider the progression James lays out. Trials and difficulties are precisely what bring us to our knees. This week I was at a training center talking with a group about change — how to move through change, how to motivate through change. Then the topic shifted slightly to change through crisis, and that distinction is significant. Changing in the middle of a crisis is far easier than simply choosing to change when we can see that we should.
Take the straightforward example of weight. If someone is a few pounds overweight, then a few more, and the doctor says year after year, "You need to lose five or ten pounds," it is easy to keep putting it off. But when the doctor finally says, "You need to lose twenty or twenty-five pounds," that still may not be the number that motivates. We say we'll quit smoking after the heart attack. We say we'll get fit after the heart attack. Changing in a crisis is not nearly as difficult as changing simply because we can see the need. The crisis does what reason alone could not.
What James is saying is that the crisis is precisely the moment when prayer should be easiest. When you are in the middle of difficulty and you need guidance, understanding, strength, and patience — that is the moment to cry out. That is the moment to pray.
God Gives Generously Without Reproach
And look at what happens when we do pray. He gives to all men generously and without reproach.
Giving Without Reproach
The idea here is singleness of heart — unconditional, without bargaining. He gives liberally. Jesus says it this way in Matthew chapter 7: "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you." And He gives without reproach. That word is a verb meaning to unbraid or severely reprimand.
I have said that oftentimes as a parent, you can feel like a human ATM, just doling it out again and again. And you find yourself saying, "Is that all you care about? Here's what I've done for you, and you're back again." There is a great Saturday Night Live skit from a few years ago where a man drives up to an ATM. The first day he punches in the code and pulls out money. The second day he does the same. On the third day he hits the button and a voice comes on: "Bob, I'm looking at my records here. You were in here two days ago and we gave you $50. You were in here yesterday and we gave you $50. And I see you're here again today. I'm not inclined to give you another $50. What have you done with $100 in these last two days?"
The minute I saw that skit, I thought — and I know this sounds odd — I thought of James 1:5. He gives without reproach. He does not say to you, "Well, I gave you wisdom yesterday. I gave you wisdom three years ago." He gives generously, without reproach.
Asking in Faith Without Doubting
Now there is one qualification, and James does not slide it in quietly — it has its own verse: "But let him ask in faith without any doubting." He wants you to believe. The opposite of believing is doubting. Faith, or believing, is mentioned fourteen times by James in this letter. In its simplest terms, it means to have a genuine trust in God and His character, His purposes, and His promise.
When you ask, don't doubt. That doubt can take many forms. It might be doubting whether God has the ability to answer, or whether He even cares. Have you prayed like that? "God, I'm bringing this to You, but this is such a small thing. Virtually everything I deal with is too minor for You." Let me help you with that: virtually everything you are engaged in is a small thing before God. If you are only going to bring Him the big things, you will not talk to Him very often.
Doubt can also come dressed in what sounds like humility: "God, I'm so unworthy. I'm so undeserving." That is a given — but it does not affect the way He responds to you. However, if you are honestly thinking, "I'm not worthy of this, therefore He likely will not answer," then you are coming to Him with doubt. Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith it is impossible to please Him." Let me read it from The Message: "It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who would approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him."
So when you go to Him in the midst of a trial or difficulty, when you ask Him for wisdom and a clear understanding of your circumstances, He will respond — though perhaps not instantaneously. What hinders that? Doubt. If you doubt, James says you are like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed. He is not describing enormous crashing waves. He is describing someone blown by the wind — over here one day, over there the next, and somewhere else the day after that. Let not that person expect to receive anything from the Lord. He is double-minded and unstable. He claims to follow Christ and to believe in the one true God, but when the test comes and it is time to ask, he does not trust Him.
Trials as Revealers of Character
Those tests are great revealers. There is an old saying that golf is a character builder. Golf is not a character builder. Golf is a character revealer. I had a fitting experience the other day. I was playing a par three and I knew — I knew — I needed to hit a five-iron. There was water on the right and the pin was up front. And I thought, "If I hit a six-iron perfectly, I can hit that pin." There were a couple of problems with that. Number one, I have yet to hit a six-iron perfectly. Why would I start now? I knew what to do and I did not do it. I hit it, knocked it in the water, laid it out, knocked it over, missed the putt, and made a double bogey. Then I went to the next hole and made a birdie. Years ago, that double bogey would have driven me out of my mind. But golf is not a character builder — it is a character revealer. God has made me a better— well, I may have taken that too far. I know, I know. But I was on a roll.
The point stands: any adversity reveals character. Red lights reveal character. That one hits a little closer to home. And that is exactly what James is saying. If I ask and in the asking I am a doubter, I am double-minded.
Five Ways to Respond to Trials
So we need to respond rightly to these trials. Let me give you five things. First — and we have already touched on this — in the midst of trials, they tend to surround us on every side and we lose the big picture. Isaiah 55:8–9 says, "My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord." We need a fresh set of eyes. In a meeting recently someone said, "We are so close to this, we need a fresh set of eyes." When you are in the midst of a trial, the eyes you need are God's eyes. You get that by praying for wisdom, and you get that by going to His book.
God Is in Control
Here is the second thing to remember: God is in control. God has not left the fold. God has not left the throne. Colossians 1:15 reads, "For He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
God is in control. In the midst of a trial, it is easy to say that things are out of control. What we really mean is that things are beyond our control. Now, they have been beyond our control all along, but the trial helps us see this. You were never in control.
I heard someone described the other day as a control freak. The truth is, I do not know anybody who is not a control freak. Everyone wants things to go exactly a certain way, and it is when things do not go the way we plan or expect that we feel undone. We need to be reminded that something being beyond our control does not mean it is out of control. No maverick molecule, nothing, can usurp His perfect plan. Nothing comes into your life that He does not cause or allow.
Learn from the Trial
Here is a third thing: learn a lesson from what you are going through. How awful it would be to endure all that pain and suffering and not learn anything — to simply repeat the same patterns over and over again.
I was talking to a business owner recently who asked me to listen to his situation and tell him what I thought. This was about the fifteenth time I had had that same conversation with him. I told him plainly: you keep doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. You treat people the same way, you operate the same way, and then you are surprised when the result does not change. You are unhappy with the outcome, but you will not change what you are doing. There has to be a point at which you learn something. If you are going through a trial, it is important to learn from it.
Share Your Burden
Here is the fourth thing: share your burden. You do not need to go it alone. Second Corinthians 1:3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted."
There are people all around you. No trial comes into your life that is not common to others as well. Do not sit there thinking that no one has ever suffered like this or been through what you are going through — because they have, and they are probably living just down the road from you. God allows the afflictions that come into your life, oftentimes, so that you become a vehicle for the comfort He will use to reach those around you. That comfort flows through sharing with one another.
Return to Where You Last Saw God Work
Here is the last thing: if you are in the midst of trials and difficulties and you are not sure what to do, go back to where you last saw God work. That is really important. When I sit with people who say they are confused and do not know what to do, I offer them this general piece of guidance without needing to know every specific: go back to where you last saw God work.
That is what I have observed repeatedly in my fifteen years with Priority Living. Over those years I have seen many people come, then leave, then come back again. Often what happens is that God works in their lives through the ministry, they get squared away, they move forward — and then when things go south, they instinctively find their way back. I get to say to them, "Welcome home. It is good to have you back. Let us work through this together."
Sometimes in the midst of trials we feel so isolated. Perhaps we are embarrassed by what we are going through, so we pull away from friends and from the church. Perhaps people are not responding exactly the way we hoped, so we construct an artificial narrative and tell ourselves that nobody really cares. We go off alone, and now we have only ourselves as a counselor — and that creates all sorts of additional problems. The answer in those moments is the same: go back to where you last saw God working, and let Him work there again.
Theology That Changes Lives
This book is so practical and so theologically sound. Did you notice what happened in each of those responses? We go right to theology. We ask Him for wisdom. We understand He is in control. We share our burdens. We wait to see Him work. But our theology is not merely an academic study — it translates into practical, life-changing truth.
Let us pray. Father, thank You for this truth. I pray that today people have a wonderful time and that it is a great day. For many, You are going to provide an opportunity to share our faith. It may be just a comment, but God, make us truly perceptive. It may even be a throwaway line that someone shares, but You use it to trigger a thought and a relationship that blossoms. God, You may plant seeds today that we will not harvest for years. How exciting it is to know that You are working Your perfect plan in this world, and that we are part of it. God, we love You, we worship You, we praise You. As we leave this place, we pray that we go into a world that is confused — and we have the answer.