Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

by Jerry Bridges

The Christian life is intended to be one of continuous growth. We all want to grow, but we often resist the process. This is because we tend to focus on the events of adversity themselves, rather than looking with the eye of faith beyond the events to what God is doing in our lives. It was said of Jesus that He “for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Christ’s death on the cross, with its intense physical agony and infinite spiritual suffering of bearing God’s wrath for our sins, was the greatest calamity to ever come upon a human being. Yet Jesus could look beyond that suffering to the joy set before Him. And, as the writer of Hebrews said, we are to fix our eyes on Him and follow His example. We are to look beyond our adversity to what God is doing in our lives and rejoice in the certainty that He is at work in us to cause us to grow.