Dear Friend,

Trials do not feel good. No one wakes up and says, “I know what I want to do for fun today: Walk through a trial, complete with a cherry on top!”

But there IS a cherry on top (as cliché as this phrase is, I’m using it anyway!)

Trials that test our faith produce endurance. And at the end of the endurance is a PERFECT result! Why? Because the trial is from God, and His purposes are for your good, and He will never lead you astray! Not ever! If you’re in a valley; if you’re walking through flames, there is a perfect result at the end. God promises us that. But that perfect result… That’s for Him to decide.

When we are facing a trial, the Lord wants us to draw near to Him with confidence, trusting that He knows what He’s doing. That’s why we must endure. To endure means to let go. It means that even though the wind is blowing and the boat is shaking and the waters are raging, we sit calmly on the boat and look up at the One who is rescuing you right here, right now, even if it doesn’t appear that way, even if it doesn’t feel that way. In order to endure, we must surrender. That’s a death to self, but guess what? It leads to LIFE!

So, dear friend, do you feel like a fish out of water? If you are a child of God, you are not a fish out of water; you are held safely in the Lord’s hands. No matter what your circumstances or emotions or the voice of the enemy want you to believe, NOTHING will ever separate you from Christ’s love. It is impossible. Don’t give in to the enemy; don’t give up. Keep walking with the Lord. Follow Him, and wait and see the perfect result that’s in store.

Often times, we want that perfect result to come now. What does scripture say? It says, “AND LET endurance have its perfect result.” The endurance comes first. And how we react to the time of endurance has a huge role in how we will feel and how we will walk with the Lord. We don’t get to decide the length of the trial. We don’t get to decide the outcome. We don’t get to say, “No, I won’t endure this.” We don’t have a choice. But we do have a choice on how we react. We can choose to walk with the Lord sluggishly or confidently. We can choose to endure while kicking and screaming, while trying and failing to escape our time of endurance, or we can be still and let the Lord use this time of endurance during our trial to transform our hearts into His likeness–Into more of Him and less of me.

Endurance is hard, but it’s worth it. Emptying ourselves of ourselves gives God the opening to fill us with Himself, and that is His desire. To walk with us, to talk with us, to teach us all things. To strengthen us, to lead us, to bless us. To LOVE us with a love that won’t ever fail!

And what a wonderful God He is! He is one who blesses us through the trials. His trials ARE a blessing. That perfect result is coming in God’s perfect timing. Know this. Understand this. Experience this truth. Cling to this promise. Hold onto His hand, and let go of the rest. Let go and endure. Only then will His children be able to consider it all joy.