day no. 16,780: the trial of blessing and the blessing of trials

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Problems are inescapable and inevitable. Everything has problems and you have the problems you have, not the problems you don't. Envy is simply desiring someone else's problems. Covetousness is wanting to add someone else's troubles to your own.

There is a real blessing that comes with trails. Character grows where faith is sown and God does not provide the trials where He does not offer the blessing to endure them.

1 Corinthians 10:13

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

While seeing the blessing of the trial may be difficult, seeing the trail of blessings is nearly impossible. This is not to imply that blessings are bad or to add to the misery of those already heavy laden by throwing on them the additional weight of imagining how hard it must be for those sitting under umbrellas on the beach somewhere. Yes, everything has its own problems, but every problem is not  yours to have. You do not need to feel sorry for someone else anymore than you need to feel sorry for yourself. Every blessing comes with its own temptations and trials. The temptation of those being heavily tempted is to think that that those not under as much fire at the moment are free from temptation altogether. Our self-interest keeps us from seeing that discontent can happen anywhere, not just where we are. God's Word does tells us, however, which trials to pray for more of and which to pray away.

You can have the problem of empty barns and the blessing of easy clean up or you can have the problem of a barns bursting with harvest and the trial and pressure of being responsible for knowing what to do with all of it. Of course the trials of blessings are to be picked over the blessing of trials in some respects. We do not pray for trials simply for the blessing that may come with them, but we do pray for blessings and forget that new trials will come with them. 

Proverbs 27:21

The crucible is for silver,

and the furnace is for gold,

and a man is tested by his praise.

Character is never not being formed. The Christian life is top to bottom, front to back, and side to side. There is no area in which we are not being conformed to Christ. In the praise we receive, in the hate mail that comes in, in the hard times, on vacation, in our feasting, in our fasting, in our speaking, in our silence, in our abundance, in our want, in our satisfaction, in our need, in our excitement, in our disinterest, in our interactions, in our isolation, in our hopes, in our fears, in our trials, and in our blessings. We are never not being made into something. Everything is going somewhere and someday it is going to get there. Being conformed to Christ is to know the power of His sufferings and the glory of His resurrection (Php 3:10-12).

All that to say, God is so good that even trials have a silver lining and pure gold is so heavy that only arms strengthened by faith can carry its weight... especially when it comes in abundance.