Any person well-versed in the Bible will know the passage that begins with, “Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds...” It is of course from James. WHEN not IF you face trials, because you will and you do, and many will they be, as is normal of the authentic human experience.
The fact that you and I struggle — with whatever kinds of struggles you and I have — is EVIDENCE of our faith. If you had no struggles you would not need faith. You certainly would not need to rely on God.
But there are those in the faith and beyond who will want to pretend that either God fixes all our problems or that our problems are to be denied. Neither ‘solution’ merits any thought, only rejection, and neither strategy is wise.
Our problems must be incorporated into the living of our lives.
The worst Christian teaching espouses of course that a person, themselves, has a job to overcome their sin and challenges and that these would be miraculously removed from us if only we did the right things or ‘had enough faith’ — not only is this wrong, it’s dangerous and abusive when espoused. (It’s actually the other way around! When we’re honest, God works spiritually within us and God helps us overcome sin and accept our challenges.)
Works-based teaching is heresy when we consider the words of Paul: “Three times I pleaded with God to remove from me this thorn in my side, the messenger of Satan.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
God did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh. It was there for a purpose. It was there to keep Paul from becoming proud; it was there to encourage Paul to be and remain honest.
Our struggles function as our own personal thorns in the flesh. We know that they’re thorns that God won’t remove because they’re the circumstances in our lives that we cannot change. The way we’re supposed to adjust to those things we cannot change is we move in the direction of acceptance — a process dependent on honesty. And we must accept that acceptance is a journey.
Our key challenge in life is to be able to be honest with ourselves and others.
As a counsellor I know it’s my job to open space for honesty; to never be shocked, disapproving or condemning of anything. I like to think that the only time I appear visually shaken is when I’m genuinely lost in my own process — and this is always just a moment. Therapy is the place for such intimacy that a person’s truth can be both spoken and heard. It’s the true healing potential of counselling for healing.
Christian faith depends entirely on knowing we cannot add anything to the grace that saves us. We accept that efforts in our own strength are futile. No work is required of us or is even beneficial (only harmful) to live as ‘good people’. Any goodness in us is fruit of the inner work of God in our lives through being honest about our struggles.
When we live honestly amid our struggles, preferring the weakness that depends on God’s strength alone, humility becomes us and gratitude is possible, because truth has become primary and we’re no longer bargaining for a different life. Not any subjective or distant truth, but the truth about how we feel about our struggles; all truth with space for acceptance and no judgement.
Our struggles are important. They are the reason we need our faith. Struggles are evidence that our faith is real. If we suddenly overcame all our struggles faith would be unnecessary.
Photo by DJ Johnson on Unsplash
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