Trials, temptations and tragedies

When you were in grade 1, your teacher would give you a series of lessons and then she would give you a test. The test was not to make you anxious or afraid or ashamed. It was to test what you had learned. It was to help identify your strengths and weaknesses. It was to enable you to apply what you had learned to other scenarios or information.  It was to help consolidate in your mind things which you needed to know, which would help you throughout life.

So it is with the tests that God gives. It’s not much use to have a bunch of spiritual principles tucked away in your brain with no reason to refer to them. As with our school subjects, there are spiritual truths that God wants to impress upon us. Circumstances in our lives and situations that we are exposed to test our faith, our knowledge of scripture, our dependency on God, our willingness to wait upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to act upon His word.

Galatians 5: 22- tells us that the ^“fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control”. These things are not developed in our lives without testing situations.

If your grade 5 teacher were to give you the same test as you received in grade 1, you would no doubt be scornful. As we develop in our Christian walk the situations and ministry areas that God draws us into may become more testing. We learn to build on the skills that we have developed earlier. The apostle Peter, writing to the early churches, encouraged them to “make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities and continue to grow in them, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. “(2 Peter 1:5-8). The hallmarks of a Christian life do not develop in isolation – as one area is developed and strengthened, so often are others.

University studies can be a period of great intensity of study and rigorous examination. Some Christians can claim a degree in the university of Christian Studies, not a man-made institution but a God-ordained degree of life experiences. It’s frequently the people who’ve suffered the hardest life experiences who are the most adept at responding and relating to others going through difficult circumstances.  Nobody would wish tragedies of any kind on anyone, but through tragedies our faith suffers the deepest of testing. Some become bitter and turn away from God, others draw closer and more reliant on Him than ever before.

Whilst God is not the author of temptation (Satan is), God allows temptation into our lives to develop our relationship with Him.  When we are tempted, we learn to look to God’s word, to pray to Him and to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in the right way. We learn that it is a great joy to be obedient to God, even in the face of our own desires. As we learn to be obedient in small things, so God gives us the responsibility to be obedient and resist temptation in more serious things.

Trials, temptations and tragedies shape our character and relationship with God in a way that pleasant times, book learning and lip service cannot. Sometimes they pave the way for ministries, as Paul reminds us in his letter to the Corinthian church:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

In addition, the responses that we demonstrate during times of testing can be a witness to others of the power and love of Christ.

Book Review “Night” by Elie Wiesel translated from the French by Marion Wiesel Penguin Books

“Could men and women who consider it normal to assist the weak, to heal the sick, to protect small children, and to respect the wisdom of their elders understand what happened there? Would they be able to comprehend how, within that cursed universe, the masters tortured the weak and massacred the children, the sick, and the old? “

This question is posed in the introduction to “Night”, Elie Wiesel’s haunting account of his experiences in Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. This slim volume, now termed a modern classic, is studied by high school students and literature graduates and historians, psychologists and those who simply want to read a true account of events which cannot, must not be forgotten. Lest we forget. Amidst all the horror of war, the Holocaust will forever remain symbolic of unbridled infamy.

Elie Wiesel’s account of events is simple in its narrative, yet deceptively so. His prose avoids graphic descriptions. There is no need, the incidents are hauntingly sad in themselves. What does shine through in the darkness of the circumstances described, in what can only be described as inspired writing, is the humanity of the young man narrating, the depth of his mind, and the love that he demonstrates for his father and family.

This book illuminates the darkness of night. It both exposes evil of those dark times and shines as a beacon which the evil could not extinguish. It stands as a tribute to the courage of those who survived the Holocaust and the millions who perished.

And we who were not even born in those times, as we read this book, can we understand what happened there?

I look at the society in which I live, one where legislation has just been passed to allow late term abortions, one where euthanasia laws are being reconsidered. Are we protecting the innocent, the unborn, the elderly, the disabled?

Perhaps understanding is not what is required. A response must be that we will remember and try to learn from the lessons of history.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel commences his introduction to this book with the words “If in my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one.”  This is a book which speaks to the soul. Whether you read many books in your lifetime, or just a few, this is one you should read.