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Trials of faith

Trials of faith are experiences that test the faith of a believer.

Quotes

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  • Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you meet with various trials, knowing as you do that this tested quality of your faith produces endurance. But let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and sound in all respects, not lacking in anything.
  • Happy is the man who keeps on enduring trial, because on becoming approved he will receive the crown of life, which Jehovah promised to those who continue loving Him. When under trial, let no one say: “I am being tried by God.” For with evil things God cannot be tried, nor does he himself try anyone.
  • Beloved ones, do not be surprised about the fiery trials that you are experiencing, as though something strange were happening to you. On the contrary, go on rejoicing over the extent to which you are sharers in the sufferings of the Christ, so that you may rejoice and be overjoyed also during the revelation of his glory.
  • "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing."
    "Oh," says man, "but the Babel fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't."
    "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
    "Ah, that was easy," says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.
    Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

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Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • Jesus wept once; possibly more than once. There are times when God asks nothing of His children except silence, patience, and tears.
  • God has not chosen to save us without crosses; as He has not seen fit to create men at once in the full vigor of manhood, but has suffered them to grow up by degrees amid all the perils and weaknesses of youth.
  • Under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconscious to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side.
  • There will be no Christian but will have a Gethsemane; but every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel!
  • Blessed be the discipline which makes me reach out my soul's roots into closer union with Jesus! Blessed be the dews of the Spirit which keep my leaf ever green! Blessed be the trials which shake down the ripe, golden fruits from the branches.
  • Never was there a man of deep piety, who has not been brought into extremities — who has not been put into fire — who has been taught to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
  • Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties. It would seem that the more important the enterprise, the more severe the trial to which the agent is subjected in his preparation.
  • What are we, O blessed Jesus, that we should not take the baptism that Thou dost take, and be crowned, as Thou wert crowned, as Thou art, with glory? We thank Thee for trials, for care, for trouble, for the yoke, for the burden, and for the fulfillment of Thy word, that Thy yoke is easy, and Thy burden light.
  • In the time of Jesus the mount of transfiguration was on the way to the cross. In our day the cross is on the way to the mount of transfiguration. If you would be on the mountain. you must consent to pass over the road to it.
  • Every Calvary has an Olivet; to every place of crucifixion there is likewise an ascension. The sun that was shrouded is unveiled, and heaven opens with hopes eternal to the soul which was nigh unto despair.
  • By His trials, God means to purify us, to take away all our self-confidence, and our trust in each other, and bring us into implicit, humble trust in Himself.
  • Oh, how often our all-wise Master puts us into a deep pit ot trial, to subdue our pride, or to tame our passions, or to break our stubborn self-will. Blessed is he who can look up into the countenance of Jesus, and honestly say: " Master, my rebellious self is dead, that Thou mayest live in me, and that 1 may live for Thee and Thee alone."
  • Nothing is intolerable that is necessary. Now God hath bound thy trouble upon thee by His special providence, and with a design to try thee, and with purposes to reward and crown thee. These cords thou canst not break, and therefore lie thou down gently, and suffer the hand of God to do what He pleases.
  • The way is dark, my child! but leads to light;
    I would not have thee always walk by sight.
    My dealings now, thou canst not understand.
    I meant it so; but I will take thy hand,
    And through the gloom lead safely home
    My child!
  • When our troubles are many we are often by grace made courageous in serving our God; we feel that we have nothing to live for in this world, and we are driven, by hope of the world to come, to exhibit zeal, self-denial, and industry.
  • It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He commands us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him.
  • Purge me, oh Lord, though it be with fire. Burn up the chaff of vanity and self-indulgence, of hasty prejudice, second-hand dogmas — husks which do not feed my soul, with which I cannot be content, of which I feel ashamed daily — and if there be any grain of wheat in me, any word or thought or power of action which may be of use as seed for my nation after me, gather it, oh Lord, into Thy garner.
  • All the lessons He shall send
    Are the sweetest:
    And His training, in the end,
    Is completest.
  • "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience;and experience, hope." That is the order. You cannot put patience and experience into a parenthesis, and, omitting them, bring hope out of tribulation.
  • Chastising is an effect of love. It is not only consequential to, but springs from it; wherefore there is nothing properly penal in the chastisement of believers. Punishment proceeds from love to justice, not from love to the person punished; but chastisement is from love to the person chastised, though mixed with displeasure against sin.
  • What disturbs us in this world is not " trouble," but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things.
  • Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or whether it be poison from a million of buzzing,tiny musquitoes; if there be a smart, go to Him, and He will help you bear it. He will do more, He will bear it with you; for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us.
  • Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim, the very roughness only stimulates the climber to steadier and steadier steps, till that legend of the rough places fulfills itself at last, "per aspera ad astra, over steep ways to the stars.
  • The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
    And one unbounded spring encircle all.
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