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This is spilling over from the sermon I preached Sunday. Text was Mark 6 Jesus walking on water. Look through there and see the disciples tired and struggling.

A lot of Christians subtly think that when things are easy God is blessing them. That somehow the blessing of God is equated with easy living. I’d like to argue instead that we need trial and suffering in order to grow.

Here is what I’m not saying:
1. Christians with easy lives aren’t blessed.
2. We should be addicted to trial and suffering and seek it out.
3. We should flee from trial and wallow till it passes if indeed it finds us.

So here is what we should know about Christian growth.
1. We WILL face trial. It’s only a matter of when and for how long. Someone we love will die. There will be a horrible accident. There will be something negative we can’t explain. We will come under attack, or our relationships will be challenged.

2. The Biblical view of trial must center around Jesus. If God wanted to show us an easy life, He’d have picked a better figure than Jesus to be the enter of the Bible’s message. Jesus suffered an horrific death and lived with nothing.

3. Trial should make us long for our home. We have no home on this earth. If we’re believers in Jesus, our home is eternally with Jesus, and suffering in this life should make us long to go there.

4. When facing trial, we should pray it will make us more like God. So many times the weaknesses in our faith are revealed when calamity strikes. But, what if people observed in us peace and calm and assurance in the face of intense unknown? Do we pray that the hardest times make us like God? Or do we pray that the hardest of times just go away… So we can return to something easier?

Think. Be challenged. How will you face your current or your next trial?