From Alpha to God
Exulting in Trials
Exulting in Trials
When the storms of life take place, when we face loss, fear or other struggles we have two ways to
respond to that: either you start complaining and lamenting, or you exult in your tribulation. Both
reactions are valid and neither is better or worse. Rick Warren, who I have talked about previously in
the episode about mental health has a nice sermon on lamenting to God1. He starts with the story
about Jacob and zooms in on the moment where He struggled physically with God. Warren goes on to
say that God loves it when you struggle with Him. Why? Because the opposite of struggling with Him
is to run away from Him, like Jacob did for almost his entire life. Wrestling is also a very personal
confrontation: it’s a face to face fight. It can’t get any more personal than that.
When we’re struggling with God it is easy to start complaining and this might seem like something bad,
but when we look at the Bible it can be a good thing, as long as we do it in a way that is biblically sound.
Warren discovered a pattern when he studied the Bible and he elaborates nicely on that. I usually don’t
like the: ‘if you face this you should do this this and that, using this structure.’, but I think he laid out a
nice biblical structure of lamenting to God.
The first thing that happens is that you start to complain: you tell God what you don’t like, what hurts
you, what bugs you, what you think is unfair and so on. The Bible is full of people complaining to God,
one of which is Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 12: 1 and 4 – “Righteous are you, O LORD, when I complain to you;
yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked
prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? How long will the land
mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the evil of those who dwell in it
the beasts and the birds are swept away, because they said, “He will not see our
latter end.”
Another one is Heman in Psalm 88, where he cries out to God: ‘I am like a man who has no strength,
like those who you remember no more.’
Psalm 88: 1-5 – “O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before
you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! For my soul is
full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those
who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose
among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you
remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.”
1
https://vimeo.com/87939991
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From Alpha to God
Exulting in Trials
Jehoshaphat was a king of Israel and complained in 2 Chronicles 20 to God, when three countries joined
forces to take over Gods people.
2 Chronicles 20: 6-7, 12 –“O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in
heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power
and might, so that none is able to withstand you. 7 Did you not, our God, drive
out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to
the descendants of Abraham your friend? 12 O our God, will you not execute
judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is
coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
Note these words: ‘God are you not’, ‘did you not’ and ‘God will you not?’ By the way complaining
about God is rebellion, complaining to God is an act of worship, according to Warren. After that Warren
states that you appeal to God’s nature, to His character.
Then you remind God of His promises, like Jacob does in Genesis 32
Genesis 32: 9-12 – “And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of
my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your
kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of
steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for
with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.
Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I
fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But
you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the
sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.”
God loves it when we do that, according to Pastor Rick. Although reminding might seem like a weird
word here, I think what Pastor Rick meant by that is restating God’s promises in your complaint or
prayer, because then you show that you have knowledge of what God promised to His children.
In the end, after all this it is most important to express trust in God’s wisdom. Acknowledge that He is
God and you are not. David ends many Psalms with: although everyone turned against me, even
though my life is a mess, I still trust you, my God. I trust your love, your wisdom, even though I don’t
understand the situation I’m in now. One great example of this is in Habakkuk 3
Habakkuk 3:17-19 – “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the
vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut
off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he
makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.”
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From Alpha to God
Exulting in Trials
Note what Habakkuk says here: ‘I will still rejoice in the Lord’, something that Steven J. Cole elaborates
on in his sermon on exulting in trials2. His sermon is based on Romans 5: 3-5.
Romans 5: 3-5 – “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and
character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been
given to us. That brings us to the second way of dealing with struggles in our
lives.”
I have to admit, that one is much harder to do, or as Cole states it: “The problem is, the biblical
approach to trials is just plain nuts!” We’re very good at complaining, because it is a natural reaction
as we just saw. But in the New Testament we see a whole lot of examples of people rejoicing in the
Lord through tribulation and even through severe prosecution. Cole starts with quoting Jesus, which
always is a good place to start:
Matthew 5: 11-12 – “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be
glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets
who were before you.”
Cole states two main points when it comes down to exult in trials. The first one is that to exult in trials,
we have to develop and maintain God’s perspective: He is using trials to shape our character and
prepare us for heaven. The second is that we must keep in mind that trials do not nullify God’s great
love for us. He divides his first point into four main thoughts, which I want to summarize here, because
I think these are important to understand what Paul meant in verses 3-5.
The first thought is that exulting in trials is not an automatic response: it requires deliberate focus.
Because if exulting in trials were the automatic response, we’d see multitudes of people rejoicing.
Nobody lacks trials, right? Instead, we often see multitudes complaining about their trials.
The second is that exulting in trials does not mean denying the pain. The Bible does not encourage us
to deny reality, put on a happy face, and pretend that we’re just praising the Lord, when in fact we’re
hurting inside. Later in Romans 12:15 Pauls says: ‘Weep with those who weep.’ He does not say, ‘Exhort
those who weep to exult in their trails!’ There’s nothing wrong with feeling sorrow or pain or grief in
the midst of a difficult trial. We shouldn’t deny these feelings in an attempt to look more spiritual.
The third thought is that exulting in trials is possible when we keep in mind that God is using the trials
to shape our character. After mentioning exulting in his tribulations, Paul continues: “knowing that
tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character,
hope.” The word knowing here is part of the deliberate focus that Cole mentioned in the first point.
Our mental focus must include the vital knowledge that God is using the trials to shape our character,
if
we
submit
joyfully
to
Him.
The last thought is that exulting in trials requires developing and remembering the hope of heaven.
Because our hope is not in a trouble-free life, but rather in a glorious trouble-free eternity. We have
to focus on the hope of the glory of God, which we will experience in heaven.
So whether you lament to God or submit joyfully to God during a dark period in your life, God will use
it for the good, and as long as you don’t run, you will get to know God in a deeper way.
2
https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-26-exulting-trials-romans-53-5
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