I have always experienced a great deal of existential dread. As an eight-year-old, I read a book about the threat of nuclear war that awakened my mind to a vast slew of negative possibilities I didn’t know about. I cried a lot and dreamed of ways I could protect myself with lead suits and bunkers. I read books about natural disasters, and was just sure I was going to fall into a vat of quicksand one day (I always held my breath when watching Princess Bride as Westley dove into the lightning sand, just to make sure I could make it if I had to). I had no clue, though, of how to deal with these trials or my worry about them.
As an avid reader and a citizen of the world, it’s never been a surprise to me that life is filled with challenges, often referred to as trials in the Bible. What I was missing, and what I often still miss as I go through difficult things in life, is a reminder of where to fix my eyes.
At the end of Hebrews 11, we’re told that the heroes of our faith, both named and unnamed, “were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” (v. 39) I was really annoyed when I first read that verse. These people went through hell and back with their eyes on God and never got what they were promised? What gives? Isn’t this supposed to be inspiring?
To make it through trials, lean hard on God and those around you. Those everlasting arms will carry you through.
When you think about it more, though, there’s something about it that resonates deeply. Who among us hasn’t felt bitter at one time or another, feeling that we’ve “handled” a trial properly, only to have it not turn out the way we hoped? How many of us have been disappointed by a diagnosis, a lack of healing, or a relationship falling apart when we felt we’d done it right? These faith heroes in Hebrews must have felt the same. But then we read on: “...God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
I’m not going to lie to you, I still don’t fully understand all the intricacies of that, but it does give me hope. They got what is better, even if they didn’t see it at the time. When I think about facing trials this way, how it must have been to know these heroes of faith, I think of my aunt. She’s a woman of deep belief in God, and the matriarch of our family. She’s lost two brothers to illness, her husband to a long, slow decline, one child to a brain tumor, and the other to a car accident. Yet, through it all, she remains stalwart. She frequently talks about how blessed she has been to have so much love in her life and spends a lot of time caring for others. Her eyes are solidly fixed on what’s unchanging and better than her circumstances: the love of God and her community.
How, then, do we persevere through the trials of life like those heroes and my aunt did? By being realistic. It’s not fun to suffer. It can’t be cured with platitudes or quick fixes. Making it through a trial is a slow process. But in seeing hard times through, we can cultivate a rugged perseverance born of rootedness in community and hearts tenderly waiting on the Holy Spirit, resting in His comfort. To make it through trials, lean hard on God and those around you. Those everlasting arms will carry you through.