I love the fresh start a new year brings, don’t you? An opportunity to evaluate our lives and see what areas need improving, an opportunity to make plans to head in the right direction. I’m not usually one to make New Year’s Resolutions, but this year I determined that I want to make some changes. I still don’t know if I would call them resolutions, but since I can’t think of a better word, I suppose they are! I want to be stronger. Physically, yes. A new decade of life is quickly approaching, and I feel the weakness of my body overtaking me year by year. But I also want to be stronger spiritually.

2018 was a difficult year for my husband and I—not in our marriage—but in “life”. We didn’t have any major catastrophe happen, but it seemed like a year of “blow” after “blow” knocking us down at nearly every turn. By the end of the year, I felt whipped. There were times I wanted to quit. Quit what, I’m not sure, but I sure didn’t want to have to fight any more. It was in this time of “fainting” that the Lord reminded me of Proverbs 24:10: If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. Ouch, Lord. Then he reminded me of verse 5 of the same chapter: A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. Double ouch. If I were wise, I would be strong (ie, not fainting). According to Webster1828.com, wisdom is the right use or exercise of knowledge. Somewhere along the way, I was forgetting to exercise the knowledge I had hidden away in my heart, and I was getting weak.

Strength comes from hard work. There’s just no way around it. If you want to be strong, you must exert energy and stress on those muscles in order for them to get stronger. The same holds true for our spiritual life. We must exercise our spiritual muscles in order to be spiritually strong. The problem lies within the fact that most of us hate exercise—physical and spiritual. I hate to sweat. I think it’s gross. That’s my main reason for avoiding physical exercise. But I also very much dislike trials. Trials?!? What does that have to do with exercise, you might ask. Well, James 1:2-5 says, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. It is the trying of my faith that gives me patience. Trials are the “weights” that we must lift in order to be stronger in this area of patience. Wait a minute, we were talking about wisdom and now we are talking about patience. Why the switch? Hebrews 12:1 says, Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily best us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, [underlining mine]. We are suppose to run this race, the Christian life, with patience. And patience comes from trials. Now, you may think that just because you have gone through trials, that you are in the clear. If trials produces patience, surely you are being strengthened. There is more to this strength than just enduring the trial. Look back at James 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. That word “let” is a key word here, implying that we must ALLOW patience to do the work that is needed in our lives. If we are completely honest with ourselves, many of us go through trials kicking and screaming, looking for the easiest way out, resisting the pain and discomfort. In these instances, we are not allowing patience to have her perfect work. We just want out! The proper way to react to a trial is found by Paul’s example in II Corinthians 12:9-10 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. When we realize that the trials that come in our lives are meant to drive us toward Christ, to make us more like Him, our perspective on trials change. Sure, they may still be rather unpleasant, but we can see them for what they are—strength-building, faith-building exercises. None of us are getting out of this life unscathed. Trials are a guarantee (Job 14:1Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.), but our response is up to us: resist or be strengthened. When we’ve strengthened ourselves with each trial, not only do we endure the next trial a little easier, but we come to despise the difficulties less and less, knowing it is all for our good and His glory!