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I felt like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz as I was spending time in the book of James recently. She was walking along with chanting, “Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!” But I was reading the words, “Trials, testing, temptations, oh my!”

Have you opened that book lately? It is said to be like the Proverbs of the New Testament. He speaks so many practical truths that hit me square in the jaw sometimes and wraps arms of love around me other times.

I’m trying to memorize James 1:2-8. It is so good for my wandering heart to have God’s truth to grab a hold of when things are difficult. Let me share just a bit of what I am learning from our precious Savior in this passage.

1. I am going to have tests of various kinds in order to grow in spiritual maturity: There are times like in Abraham’s life when we are asked to give up someone special in our lives. In Joseph’s life, he had a woman who kept trying to get him to be unfaithful to his mission. Our faith is challenged in the tests. We are face-to-face with whether we believe what we say we believe or not.
2. When the tests and trials of life come along, I will be tempted to doubt: I will doubt God’s goodness. Other times I will doubt His promises in Scripture. Satan uses the same tactics he used with Eve in the Garden and has been using for centuries, “Did God really say?” This is where our faith can fall apart – not during the test so much but how we internalize the test as it becomes a temptation.

One author said that God does not help us by removing the tests, but by making the tests work for us. Satan wants to use the tests to tear us down but God uses them to build us up.

So how can God use the tests to build us up?

Building us up does not mean making life comfortable or giving us everything we ask for. As much as we might think that will “build us up”, it will actually have the opposite effect on us. It makes us self-sufficient instead of God-sufficient. Building us up comes as our faith in Him grows and we become more spiritually mature.

People often say to you when you are suffering through a rebellious teen child or the death of a loved one or the diagnosis of cancer that “God won’t give you more than you can bear”. I disagree. That is the whole point of the tests. To get us to where we finally realize we can’t bear it alone. We need a Savior. A Messiah. And a Redeemer. The verse that people loosely quote is I Corinthians 10:13. It says that there are no temptations that God allows and that He doesn’t also provide a way to escape them.

Trials are God’s way of helping us see our need to turn completely to Him.

Every trial, every external difficulty, carries with it a temptation, an inner enticement to sin. God may bring, or allow trials; but he is not, James insists, the author of temptation (James 1: 13).

When my husband struggled with addiction and then died from the devastation that addiction caused, I found myself complaining against God, questioning His love, and resisting His will. At this point, Satan provided me “proof” that God didn’t really love me like He loved others. Satan fed me ideas that life was pointless if it ended up like this! The testing of my faith gave opportunity for temptations to doubt God instead of leaning into Him and trusting in His love. And I fell into those temptations so many times. My faith seemed shattered, lying broken on the floor.

“This wasn’t how it was SUPPOSED to be,” I cried.

I gathered up all the pieces of my heart and figuratively handed them to God. I needed a Savior. So I went back to the basics of faith and allowed God to rebuild my life to His glory.

A temptation is an opportunity to accomplish a good thing in a hard way.

Learn from my mistakes – don’t fall for Satan’s tricks to doubt God’s love and goodness. Trust Him even when it doesn’t make sense. Even when your world seems shattered to pieces. Our goal is spiritual maturity and it comes as we see the tests and trials in our lives as opportunities for growth.

Loving Father, forgive us for falling to the temptations to doubt Your love when our faith is tested. Help us grab ahold of Your promises and remember the truth of Scripture instead of going our own way. Thank You for Your love in our lives every moment of every day. Amen