Why do trials come? To test our faith; to produce maturity, completeness, and to show us our lack, our need for God's grace. It is basically for our benefit. To produce in us, James says, a proved character or virtue. These trials that God works in our lives, sometimes in times of severe testing, is used by him at every juncture to make us more valuable to him. I like the following illustration: a five-dollar bar of steel cut into ordinary horseshoes is about ten dollars worth. If you take that same five-dollar bar of steel and you cut them into sewing needles, then that same five-dollar bar of steel becomes worth three-hundred-and-fifty dollars instead of ten dollars. If you take that same five-dollar bar of steel and you cut them into delicate springs for watches, that five-dollar bar still is worth two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars. It is the same piece of metal. God is taking you and shaping you through those trials, the difference is cutting down and shaping to become more and more valuable in his service. So the next time you are discouraged at what you are going through in the various trials, understand that God is shaping you and creating you to be a valuable tool in his economy.¹

Michael Voytek