Trials are No Accident

This morning I read an article written in 1868 which holds forth a simple truth:  all who labour for the cause of Christ will have hard times.  We will experience opposition and setbacks while we are doing God's will.  It is a commonly held misconception among Christians that when we do something for God, He should make it easier.  Yet God does not remove from us the very trials which perseverance proves our faith to be genuine to us and a lost world.  Trials are opportunities for our growth and for deeper trust and reliance upon God moving forward.

C.H. Spurgeon had no shortage of difficulties in his ministry which was greatly blessed by God.  When there is opportunity we can certainly expect adversity.  Spurgeon was deeply troubled by an incident at the Surrey Music Hall where he was slated to speak and many people died in a panic.  Nature itself may seem to labour to hinder us by inclement weather.  He experienced loss when a strong wind knocked down a building being constructed at Stockwell Orphanage.  From the scripture Spurgeon cited the incident where a young man had a borrowed iron axe head fly off the handle and into the water as a case where a man can do a good thing with a right motive and suffer loss (2 Kings 6:1-7).  The prophet Elisha miraculously recovered the iron by making it float, and we can be encouraged by this illustration of divine aid in times of loss.  Here is an excerpt from the article titled, "Accidents In the Lord's Work:"

"God would have us serve him under trials and difficulties; to screen us from them would be to make babies of us, and not to develop the manly qualities of patience, courage, and perseverance.  In this world and under its ordinary laws the Great Master would have us labour, not under a glass case of miracles and wonders, but under the cloudy skies which look down upon a fallen world:  he trains us to work not as a race of amateurs protected from all the dust and sweat of ordinary life, and laid up in lavender by supernatural exemptions from hardships, but as real workmen, to whom things are as they are, who find trees hard to fell, and the heads of whose axes fly off unless they are well fastened on to their handles.  Of course, if trust in providence be a guarantee against flood, wind, fire, and hail, it is clear that all who meet with such calamities are great sinners, and their works obnoxious to the Ruler of all things, but this can hardly be true, when we frequently see those called to suffer who are the very cream of the church of Christ.  Paul was engaged upon no ill errand when he suffered shipwreck; his soul was fired with the noblest ambition of which sanctified humanity is capable, and yet the vessel was dashed to pieces.  The fact is, that the same events may be curses to some and blessing to others, and thus a judgment which overwhelms the ungodly may be a gracious visitation to the saint.  Our business is to learn the lessons which adversities are meant to teach us, and they are not difficult to discover." (Spurgeon, C.H. (1975). C.H. Spurgeon's works as published in his monthly magazine The Sword and the Trowel, Volume 2. 1st ed. Pasadena, Tex.: Pilgrim Publications, pp.30-31.)