Verse of the day: Stretch out with all joy to go through various trials, knowing that the test of your faith, once confirmed, produces perseverance (James 1. 2-3).
Strange as it may seem, one of the main purposes of being shaken by suffering is to make our faith more unwavering.
- Faith is like muscle tissue: if you push it to the limit.
- It becomes stronger.
- Not weaker.
- That’s what Tiago means here.
- When your faith is threatened.
- Tested.
- And pressed until it nearly breaks.
- The result is a greater capacity for perseverance.
God loves faith so much that He will taste it until it is almost broken to keep it pure and strong. For example, he did this to Paul, according to 2 Corinthians 1. 8-9:
“Because we do not want, brethren, to ignore the nature of the tribulation that happened to us in Asia, because it was beyond our strength, to the point of despairing even of life itself. However, already in ourselves, we have had the death penalty, not for trusting in ourselves, but in God who resurrects the dead.
The words, for what? show that there was a purpose in this extreme suffering: it was so that Paul would not trust himself and his resources, but in God and, specifically, in God’s future grace to resurrect the dead.
Does God appreciate our faith with all our hearts that He will take gracefully anything in the world we can be tempted to trust?even life itself. His goal is for us to become stronger and stronger in our confidence that he himself will be all we need.
He wants us to be able to say to the Psalmist, “Who else do I have in heaven?There is no one else with whom I am happy on earth. Even if my flesh and heart fail, is God the strength of my heart and my inheritance forever?(Psalm 73: 25-26).