“Don’t you know that process is everything?” my friend, Glenda, told me one day when I was discouraged about the seemingly insurmountable challenges in my life. She is one of those rare people who possess such wisdom and maturity that I have actually heard adults say, “When I grow up, I want to be like Glenda.” I was lamenting the state I’d been in when my sage-like friend concluded, “God is at least as concerned with the process as He is with the end result.”
Her statement found a permanent file in my mind. I had been hoping for instant relief, for assurance that the pieces would quickly fall into place so I could happily resume life as it had been before all the chaos. But I got something better: the truth.
Maybe it’s our fast-paced, modern Western culture that makes us expect simple, microwave-able solutions to life’s puzzles. When we have a headache, we take a pill. If our car is acting up, we immediately take it to a mechanic so that we can get back on schedule. It’s frustrating when life throws a wrench into our plans, upsetting the predictable flow of things. But it is during those times that God can work uniquely in our lives if we are willing to let Him. Some will come to know and appreciate God through their blessings, but many of us fail to see the greatness of our need for Him until something in our life goes awry. Personally, I am much more driven to the Word of God and prayer during times of difficulty—almost everything I’m sharing in this series was born out of such a time. As C. S. Lewis wrote so eloquently in The Problem of Pain: “God whispers to us in our pleasures…but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Romans 5:3 sums up God’s working in us through challenges in a neat little package:
“We also exult in our tribulations knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope.”
It is easy to miss the mechanics of this if you just skim over it. The words: tribulation, perseverance, proven character, and hope are used to describe stages, or a progression of events. The last word, hope, made sense to me as the final stage only after seeing it in action. I will share some real life examples of how I was able to gain hope through this process.
During the most desperate time in my life I met some real heroes. I had accompanied my husband on a visit with a man who had only months before broken his neck and severed his spinal cord in a skiing accident. He and his wife had been a young, active, and very productive couple. The accident literally took life, as they knew it, away from them forever. The man was unable to move below his neck and required the assistance of a ventilator to breathe; their living room looked like a specialized hospital unit full of high-tech medical equipment. His wife told me that they knew what the Bible says about God not allowing us to endure more than we can handle (1Cor. 10:13). Then she said, “We feel honored that God thinks we can handle this.” She was serious—there was no sarcasm intended in her statement. That’s faith. She was not saying that they felt able to handle it, but that they trusted God’s Word to be true, even in the traumatic reality of their circumstances. If they could trust God to sustain them in their situation, then so could I. As they persevered through their tribulation, their characters were proven, and it gave me hope.
I had an opportunity to hear the testimony of a woman who had been devastated by an act of violence. After participating in a pro-life rally at her state’s capital, she was sexually assaulted on her way home. The assault left her not only “beat up” physically and emotionally, but also pregnant after 10 years of unsuccessfully trying to conceive a child with her husband. Her testimony, given 3 years afterwards, totally blew me away with its wisdom and encouragement. One of the concepts she shared that made a huge impact on me was that she learned to quit asking God, “Why?” and began to ask, “What? Given my present circumstance, Lord, what is it that You want me to do? What do You want to teach me?” She then went on to testify of God’s faithfulness—giving assurance that His grace is sufficient, even through the most unthinkable trials. Her character was proven and it gave me hope.
Last summer my path crossed with 3 heroes in one unusual afternoon. I visited separately with a man whose son had been murdered only weeks before, a woman who lost both her husband and daughter in a tragic car accident, and a man whose leg had recently been amputated because of peripheral vascular disease. In the midst of their pain, these saints heaped nothing but blessing on me! The first one offered me canning jars, the second affirmed God’s goodness—that it is not measured by how well our lives are going, but by who He is, and the third sung for me a song of praise. He sung it with his whole heart, with tears rolling down his face, as if he were transported into heaven itself. Their perseverance caused their characters to be proven, and you know the rest.
This character-proving process is not automatic. The people I have used for examples did not have to allow their characters to be built. There is a crossroads in Romans 5:3 that begins at the words, “tribulation leads to...” The fork in the road can lead a person either closer to, or farther away from God.
Job’s one good friend, Elihu, spoke about this crossroads in the book of Job. Many of us know the story. God allowed Satan to remove from Job, a righteous man, almost every blessing he had enjoyed up to that point: his children, livestock, wealth, home, even his health. Job had 3 friends who discouraged him by saying things like, “You must have done something wrong to deserve this. Surely God must be punishing you.” Even his wife joined in on it. Eventually Job’s good attitude cracked, and he began to say things about God and his situation that would be wiser left unsaid. Elihu then cautioned Job (36:21), “Be careful, do not turn to evil; for you have preferred this to affliction.” Like a splash of cold water in the face, Elihu brought Job back to reality, reminding him that even in his misery he was still responsible for his actions.
Have you noticed how difficult it is just to be nice when life isn’t going well? When we are suffering it takes effort to be patient with our children (or traffic) and to consider the needs to others. And how often have we heard people use the unfairness of life as a reason not to follow after God? It is easier to react negatively than to endure with patience, trust, and integrity. James 1:12 says, “Blessed is he who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life…” I want the crown of life. When I get to heaven, I would like my mansion to be in the neighborhood of some of the people mentioned here!
Our society seems to equate successful living with happiness. I am not saying that we must be in crisis (or contrive one if we are in short supply) to be pleasing to God—let’s not fall into a martyr complex trap here! These principles apply to any of life’s challenges—even if it’s only a headache or an overdrawn checking account. Remember Jesus said that each day has enough trouble on its own (Mt. 6:24). But if we believe that the meaning of life is just to be happy, we may become disillusioned, feel like failures, and miss opportunities for growth when trials come our way. “Be happy” is a modern American aphorism, and a shallow one at that. Jesus told the Pharisees that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:37-40). Following those instructions will improve the quality of our lives, but being “happy” isn’t the objective.
While we should be thankful for our blessings, there is something different about suffering that can cause us to draw much closer, even cling to God. It makes me think of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe from behind and was healed of a hemorrhage. In my mind I can picture her pushing through the crowd, straining to keep from losing sight of Jesus’ back as He walks through. She is reaching desperately, and she is on the right track; Jesus even commended her for her faith! In Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis wrote: “Where we find a difficulty we may always expect that a discovery awaits us.” It is in the course of persevering through difficulty, through reaching for God on a deeper level, where we make the discoveries that build our characters, transforming us into the people God made us to be.
Which brings us back to “hope.” In Romans 8:19 we read of the “anxious longing of the creation,” waiting “eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” I used to think of that verse as a general call to evangelism. But there is even more to it. The verse prior to that puts the “anxious longing of creation” into context. Verse 18 reads, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul is telling us two things here. He is urging Christians to cling to hope, knowing that there is something in store for us if we will hold on. But it’s not just we who believe who need hope, it is also those who do not yet know Christ—“the anxious longing of creation.” Our neighbors, co-workers, and children are watching us. It is in the process of walking through adversity that the substance of our faith is revealed. In 1776 Abigail Adams wrote to a friend, “Affliction is a good man’s shining time,” quoting a poem by Edward Young. It was a time a great sacrifice in the face of uncertainty during the Revolutionary War, and the “good man” she was referring to was George Washington. Watching others make it through adversity gives us hope that we will also make it through our own challenges.
Tribulation will lead to perseverance if we choose the right path at the crossroads. Perseverance will prove our characters, as our faces remain turned towards God. And when our characters are proven, we build hope in those around us as well as in ourselves. When all is said and done, process really is everything. Here is where the “rubber meets the road” in our Christian walk. This is the stuff that saints and heroes are made of.
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