Certain things the Lord asks us to face are very hard. Certain situations He permits us to be placed in can be excrutiatingly painful and difficult. If we are serious about following the Lord, we will want to learn how to embrace these trials and to walk through them by His Life.  We won’t run from them.

I do believe there is a big difference between a trial and the cross. I believe a cross is something far deeper and weightier. When the Lord brings the cross into our lives it is recognisable as distinctly different to a trial or general hardship. We know the weight of it immediately and it lasts a long time until it has completed its work, if we let it.  As we grow up in Him, we begin to see that it is through the cross that God obtains the increase of His Son in our lives in ways that we cannot fathom and that no light trial could ever do. In fact, it is by embracing the cross, that even His Church is built.  The cross is vital in the lives of the saints and by His grace, He teaches us how to take hold of our cross and follow Him, since He carried His own cross long before us.

But for trials and hardships of a lesser kind, God still intends them for His purpose in us, for our transformation and for the increase of His Son in us.

A few months ago, one of my most longtime friends told me about his day at work. I’ll call my friend, Willy. If he reads this, that will make him laugh. It is a simple story but one that I felt would be a good springboard into today’s topic.

He and one other work mate were given a task of demolishing a bathroom in a house that was situated on a cliff face, at the bottom of a set of very steep stairs. After demolishing the bathroom, they needed to load the rubble and take it to the top of the stairs to the street for removal. On this day, the temperature was extremely high, and being only the two of them, they faced a very challenging task. And as if that wasn’t hard enough, they had to move the rubble in buckets. That’s right, heavy brick and broken concrete into handheld buckets. They had to carry these buckets up something like 194 steps until the entire rubble was at the top of the street.  (Movie scenes of prison or slave labour come to mind).

Being conscious of the temptation to complain and become negative, (which in my thinking would be understandable), they had a discussion together and made a plan. They decided to turn the task into a fitness workout, and to encourage each other in it. They decided to think about the positives.

For example, they were on an ocean front with a breeze, they had bodies that were fit and healthy for the task, they were a good team and could each rely on the other to work hard and get the job done with a good attitude. They also figured they would be rewarded with a well earned rest and a few cold beers with the house owner at the end of the day.  These were all the positives that they reminded one another of and meditated on whilst climbing those 194 stairs loaded with handheld buckets filled with brick and concrete in almost forty degrees celcius heat.

So amidst sweat and strain, they urged each other on, one step at a time, supporting one another with encouragement until the task was complete. At the end of the day, my friend Willy said, it was great. He said that as hard as it was, it turned out to be a really good day.

To my knowledge, neither of these guys are walking with the Lord. However, I saw the Lord in this story and how He so often works with us.

Many times, we are called to face difficult challenges in our Christian life as the Lord works in us. I thought I would point us just some of the ways that I feel we can really draw on the life of Christ in us, to endure during such times;

1. Don’t run away. Running from a trial is sometimes an option but I think if you have lived long enough you would agree that it only delays the lessons. The trial will only present itself in a new form somewhere down the track. We grow by our trials because we are always a work in progress. If we know that we are facing a hardship permitted by the hand of God, we can turn to Him, embrace it and trust the Lord Jesus to teach us what He wants to, through it. It doesn’t mean we will achieve our preferred outcome, the outcome might be something completely different. It might even be in apparent defeat. The victory may simply be in not running away but taking God’s hand and trusting Him to get us through it. We can ask the Lord, what do You want me to learn through this trial?
2. We are better off to surrender our own agenda and preferences, and come to a place of acceptance.  Acceptance is a greatly freeing attitude. Acceptance removes the fear and anxiety, and the heavy weight of resistance. The consequence of not accepting a situation like this, is that the challenge only grows weightier and bears down harder upon our shoulders the more we fight it.  It is impossible to win against the work of God unless we simply walk away from Him (yet even then, we face a different and more difficult kind of challenge). Jesus said His burden is light and His yoke is easy, yet they are burdens and yokes, just the same. The way of walking in lightness and ease, is to accept what He is doing by faith. That way, His burdens and yokes actually become life to us. We are better off to stop fighting God, give up our own will, comforts and preferences. This will immediately set us on the right course to be able to press on through the challenge by His grace.
3. Set your mind on the positives like Willy and his mate. Paul tells us in Philippians to meditate on the things that are pure and lovely, of good report and things that are praise worthy. Paul was a man who knew suffering. He experienced many challenges that he was not able to escape. He was a man who learned the art of acceptance, by the life of Christ in him. By his own admission, he learned to be content in all things, in plenty and in little. When we face a challenge like this, or even when do face the pain of the cross, we can meditate on the goodness of God and knowing that He is working something wonderful in us through this trial. We can be assured that behind it all, there is a hand of love toward us.
4. Don’t complain. When we complain about something God has given us, or complain about anything at all (since all things pass through the sovereign hands of God anyway), we lose the opportunity for victory. Complaining is ugly and lifeless. Complaining is burdensome not only on ourselves but on others around us and it is infectious. When we complain, the life drains out of the potential of the situation and the trial becomes wasted in our hands. Complaining is not the way of the cross, nor is it the way to face and receive any trial that has been placed in our hands. Jesus never complained even though He had every cause to because He was the Son of God being treated in horrendous ways; ridiculed, spat on, rejected, mocked, whipped, betrayed, and finally crucified, but He faced all of this without complaint. And His is the life that now lives in us. So by Christ’s life in us, we can get through without complaining, too. It might go against our natural inclination (it certainly goes against mine), but we who are in Christ, have been given a new inclination now, as new creations in Christ, we have an inclination away from complaining and towards joy in the trials!
5. Be thankful. Again, Paul exhorts us to rejoice always. Not sometimes, not when things are honky dory, but always. We have an incredible Lord, who is astonishing in His love, provision, grace, mercy, power, sufficiency, Life, and I could go on. He uses all things for good for those who love Him, and He is faithful. He has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of Light. He is our daily salvation and our Great Shepherd. We can rejoice in the goodness of God all the time, people. And there is something amazingly powerful and liberating when we rejoice in our sufferings. Paul encourages us to rejoice in our sufferings, rejoice in our weaknesses, because in them we get to fellowship with Christ in a deep and profound way and His strength is made perfect in us. This sounds like something to rejoice over and to be thankful for, to me!
6. Know that you are not alone.  I think that would have been a pretty tough task for Willy on his own, or his work mate on his own, but they had each other. And together they were stronger. Not only did the job get done quicker but it was made easier. They each shared the work load and they each supported the other, and in the end it was judged as a great day. That’s how it is in the body of Christ and with Christ in our hearts. We are never alone. Jesus Christ is our constant companion. He places our feet on solid ground so we do not stumble and fall. He carries our burdens. He leads the way. He talks with us and encourages our hearts. He is our strength and enables us to carry our load since He carried His first. He cheers us on. He has also given us brothers and sisters in His body, to walk beside us. We equally need one another to help bear the load and to spur one another on in love.
7. Keep your eyes on the prize.  Just like Willy and his mate fixed their thoughts on their reward at the end of the day, we who are in Christ, have a far greater prize, and that prize is Christ! We run the race, looking ahead and not behind, fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. To know Him and love Him, is our greatest reward. If facing a trial, bearing the cross and enduring hard times that God permits in our lives will lead us deeper into knowing the Lord, what joy we have in those trials! What hope we have! All of our sufferings have meaning and purpose in God. They are not for nothing. We have One who rewards us beyond our wildest dreams.
8. Share your stories. I was greatly encouraged by Willy’s story, hence passing it on to you. We need to hear each other’s stories, share our challenges, our defeats, our victories, and the ways we get through things. We need each other, saints. We need to be transparent with our lives, and not pretend we have it all together. We can afford to be real and genuine with one another. This way, especially as believers, we see a bigger picture, we see more of Christ! We comfort others with the same comfort we have received.

So there you go, saints. Just a light one today. Nevertheless, I pray that it encourages somebody.

When trials come, Don’t run away, Learn Acceptance, Set your mind on the positives, Don’t complain, Be thankful, Know that you are not alone, Keep your eyes on the Prize, and Share your story.

I pray that God will do this work in each one of us as we learn to trust Him, deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Him.

Christ is All.