The trials of life for the redeemed are so various. If the muscles have only one trial, the body will never be fully developed. The muscles need various trials. If the mind has only one trial, it will never be fully developed. If the mind studies only one thing, it will never be trained, developed, educated. If the soul has only one kind of trial, it will never be developed. "Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations."—James 1:2 (R. V. Margin, trials).
But the redeemed, the children of God, often complain that their trials are so hard. Easy trials do not develop. The one who takes only light exercises for his muscles will never be fully developed physically. The boy who works the easy examples and skips the hard ones, will never be an educated man; he will be only a "hewer of wood and drawer of water." It takes hard trials to develop the body properly. It takes hard trials of the mind to develop it properly. It takes hard trials to develop the soul properly; "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire." He who asks for only easy trials of his muscles, asks to remain undeveloped physically; he who asks for easy trials of his mind, asks to remain undeveloped mentally; he who asks, yearns, to have no hard trials spiritually, yearns to remain undeveloped in real character, in his spiritual nature. The hard trials are the ones that develop. And the more one's muscles have been developed, the harder should be the trials for those muscles; the more one's mind is developed, the harder should be the trials for the mind; the more the redeemed man's spiritual nature is developed, the harder his trials will be.
That would be an unwise educator who, after training the pupil's mind up through geometry, would then put him back to studying the simple branches of mathematics, instead of taking him on into higher mathematics. Likewise the Heavenly Father does not, after partly developing the redeemed, His children, by hard trials, return them to lives of easy trials, but He leads them into yet harder trials. Take Elijah as an example (see F. B. Meyer's "Elijah"). He is sent to pronounce God's sentence against Ahab (1 Kings 17:1); he is then sent into obscurity (17:2, 3); he is left dependent on the ravens for food (17:4-6); he sees the brook dry up, his only hope for water, for life (17:7); he is submitted to the humiliation of being supported by a poor widow (17:8, 9); God delays answering his prayer (17:17-22); God requires him to expose himself to danger by showing himself to Ahab (18:1); he is led to face popular religious error, and in doing so is left to stand alone (18:19-38); God delays answer to his prayer till he prays seven times (18:42-45); he suffers the further humiliation of Elisha being anointed prophet in his room (19:15, 16); he is taken up by a whirlwind to Heaven (2 Kings 2:11). A study of these trials will show that they were all hard trials, and that they increased in severity. God tells us that Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are (James 5:17); but by trials, hardships, burdens, God developed him into one of the noblest characters of all ages. God's redeemed people may expect, then, trials through their lives, and that the trials shall be increasingly severe, as they advance in the Christian life.
Often God's children are discouraged because they cannot see any purpose in their trials. But God assures us that there is a purpose. The child cannot understand the purpose of the lessons at school, but the father has the purpose. Elijah, possibly filled with apprehension, sitting by the drying brook Cherith, did not see any purpose, but God, who makes all things work together for good to His people, had the purpose and accomplished it in the development of Elijah's character; and so, as F. B. Meyer has so aptly put it, the redeemed, sitting by the drying brook of health, of property, of reputation, of family happiness, may not see the purpose, but the Heavenly Father will work, in His plan for each, every trial into the warp or woof of each life. The Saviour said to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."—John 13:7.
"Behind our life the Weaver stands
And works His wondrous will;
We leave it all in His wise hands
And trust His perfect skill.
Should mystery enshroud His plan,
And our short sight be dim,
We will not try the whole to scan,
But leave each thread to Him."
Who knows the defects, the weaknesses, of each character? Only God. Who knows what each character ought to be? Only God. Who knows how to develop each character properly? Only God. Who is able to so shape the circumstances of each life as to properly develop each character? Only God. And He has promised that He will. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28); "that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."—1 Peter 1:7. This is the only explanation of the many harassments of life.
God has revealed that the standard by which character is measured is patience, endurance. "Let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing."—James 1:4. If there were no harassments, no afflictions, no burdens, no sorrows, no disappointments, no sufferings, there could be no patience, endurance; and if there were no patience, no endurance, there could be no maturity and completeness of character. As to what trials are needed, and are best in each case, only God can decide. In our dimsightedness we think that many things are mistakes in God's plans, and that He cannot bring good out of them; but He will. A boy was born with a badly deformed foot. When he was eight years of age his father had two surgeons to operate and try to straighten the foot, but they failed. After a second operation, the foot was placed in a brace which was worn for months. But the foot remained as badly deformed as ever. The surgeons then informed the father that the foot could never be straightened. The father studied the deformed foot for many days, and then had a strange-looking box made with screws, felt taps and iron rods in different parts of it. He had the surgeons to operate again on the boy's foot, cutting the muscles and tendons in different places. The foot was then placed in the strange box; a screw was turned till the felt tap pressed against the foot at one place, almost breaking the bones; then another screw and felt tap were brought to bear on another deformed part of the foot, straightening the foot and almost breaking the bones in that part of the foot; then the iron rod was used to straighten another part. For months the boy's foot was kept in that box. The suffering, day and night for months, was indescribable. The child would weep for hours, the pain being all but unbearable; and when the father would come home the child would beg piteously for the box to be taken off and to be left a cripple. The father, mingling his tears with the tears of the suffering child, would turn the screws tighter than before, and the child would shriek in fearful agony. During those weeks and months of suffering he looked upon his father as being harsh and cruel and without love for him. Finally the father loosened all the screws and said, "Son, stand up," and for the first time in his life the boy stood erect. Often has that son, now a gray-haired man, stood over the grave of that father, long since dead, and bedewed the grave with his tears, and thanked God that he had a father who was true enough to continue the suffering until the terrible deformity was corrected. The father may have turned the screws one thread too much, but the Father in Heaven makes no mistakes, and far beyond the grave many of the redeemed will praise Him, when they understand, for the sufferings and afflictions and burdens they were led to endure here.
"Choose for us, Lord, nor let our weak preferring
Cheat us of good Thou hast for us designed.
Choose for us, Lord; Thy wisdom is unerring,
And we are fools and blind."
With the reader this may seem mere theory; he may feel that it cannot explain all the seemingly unfathomable mystery of suffering in the lives of many of the redeemed, the real children of God. Let the reader consider two things: first, that as a juror, he would not form a judgment till all the evidence had been placed before the jury. God's purpose in each case, and what God actually accomplishes in each case, in the development of character,—these have not yet been placed before the jury; but, backed up by many fulfilled prophecies, by the character of Jesus Christ, by His resurrection, by what He has accomplished in the world, we have God's solemn assurance that He will yet place this evidence before the jury.
Second, let the reader remember that with God character counts more than comfort. What father would prefer his son to be a brutal, ignorant pugilist, enjoying food and drink, physical life,—to a useful, noble, highly educated, refined, learned son who could "listen in the orange groves of Verona to the sweet vows of Juliet, or to the blind bard's harp as he strikes the chords but seldom struck harmonious with the morning stars, or to the music of the spheres as they hymn His praises around their Creator's throne"? Far more than the earthly father would choose the latter for his son, does the Heavenly Father value the soul and its development above that of the body.