Trials and Maturity

By Jamin Roller

Wind has a different impact on a candle flame than a wildfire. For the candle flame, wind will extinguish the fire, and it doesn’t take much. Anyone who has watched a child blow out the candles on their birthday cake knows this. For the wildfire, wind has the opposite effect. It feeds the fire instead of putting it out. If the candle flame could speak, it would tell the wind to leave it alone. If the wildfire could speak, it would welcome the wind. One is threatened, while the other is fed.

Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials.
—James 1:2

Trials are not inherently good. Anyone who has been persecuted for their faith or watched a family member battle cancer or suffered a miscarriage or any number of painful things we face in a sin-sick world knows that trials are signs that things are not the way they should be. Here, James was not minimizing the pain of trials. He was not saying, “get over it because trials aren’t that big of a deal.” James knew the words of his brother Jesus who said, “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

James was defining the relationship between our trials and our faith. As followers of Jesus, we believe that our future is resurrection life in a renewed heaven and earth where we will enjoy uninterrupted fellowship with our beautiful God. That is the substance of our faith. Jesus has secured that future for us through His own death and resurrection. Because that is the substance of our faith, it is more wildfire than it is candle flame. Trials do not extinguish our faith; trials make our faith stronger. James named the process as endurance that leads to lacking nothing, maturity.

I have heard many Christians speak this way. I have never once heard someone describe an easy, comfortable, got-everything-I-wanted season of life and conclude, “it made me who I am today.” However, I have heard so many faithful Christians describe seasons of loss, pain, suffering, and various trials and conclude, “I know Jesus and am like Jesus in ways that would not have happened without the trials.” That is their genuine faith speaking and saying, “I welcome the wind.”

Faithful in trial is the way Jesus secured our salvation. Therefore, faithful in trial is the way Jesus will strengthen our faith and form our Christlike character.