Do you know what evaporation, smelting, distillation and electrolysis have in common? They are all methods of purification. These are only a few in a long list of filtration techniques that impact our lives in ways we take for granted. Without them we would not be driving cars, have access to medication or enjoy the benefits of clean drinking water. We take advantage of the decontaminated outcomes without any thought for what it took to make those possible. Perhaps you do the same thing in your life.
You are not as steadfast as you should be, but according to James 1:3, the faithfulness that you do have is the product of your faith being tested. Perhaps you do not endure trials as well as you ought, but according to Romans 5:3, the success you have in that area is the result of suffering you have experienced. The degree to which you are able to cope with challenges in a God-honoring way today has a direct correlation to difficulties you experienced in the past.
At a time when I was struggling with a particularly intense hardship, I had a friend tell me, “You don’t move on, you move forward.” He wasn’t a Christian, but it turns out that what he said has a biblical basis. You know that God’s hands are not tied when we are struggling. Your trial is not the result of God losing a battle. What’s more, He did not assign your trial to you to see if you could merely endure it. The hill in front of you is intended to bring glory to Him and to grow you. It is God’s means of growth in your spiritual life. It is how God moves you forward. See if you can sense the forward momentum of the following verses.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:5–8)
The verb sequence that precedes the list of godly characteristics is “make every effort to supplement.” You should endeavor to add these qualities. The “addition” of those ranges from basic arithmetic to advanced calculus. In a basic sense, you can choose to add knowledge by diligent, accurate study of the Bible. Similarly, you can choose to demonstrate greater affection toward other Christians. Self-control, however, is learned in a laboratory. The choice must come at the time you are tempted to lack control. Deciding ahead of time that you will be characterized by self-control is, well, merely hypothetical. Likewise, steadfastness is added when trials are imposed on you.
The attributes that God is developing in you are the outcome of a kind of divine decontamination process. Isaiah 25:6, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.” And Psalm 66:10, “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.” Interestingly, the refining process is not always one of hardship. “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by His praise” (Prov. 27:21).
When you consider that all of life is a series of tests designed to produce godliness in you, then you can think rightly about the whole thing—where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going.
Did you experience an unanticipated trial? God was developing steadfastness in you. Were you done wrong? God was teaching you godly endurance. Are you enjoying success or honor? God has created an opportunity for your character to be revealed. Do you anticipate a conversation with someone else that will tempt you to lose control? God is designing a circumstance where you get to make every effort to add self-control to your faith. These tests keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful for Christ!
Choose to thank God for your tests instead of resenting them. It is the very thing that will purify you now and preserve you to the end.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:6–7)