Generally speaking, trials can be categorized into three main areas: personal, professional, and peripheral. Personal trials include family and relationship challenges—unwanted divorce, untimely death, financial crises, a rebellious teenager. Professional trials include losing a job, working for an unfair or unethical boss, getting skipped over for a deserved promotion. Peripheral trials are all those other temptations we encounter in life—putting our priorities in the wrong order, spending too much time with sports or hobbies, indulging in pornography, and the list goes on.

Truth Turns Us Around

How do we handle trials? We do it by trusting God to help us, by enduring no matter what, and by choosing to rejoice despite how we feel. Hebrews 2:18 declares that God “is able to help those who are tested.” In 2 Thessalonians 1:4, Paul commends the church for “endurance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions you endure.” They hung in there when it was hard; we need to do that too. And then there’s James 1:2: “Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials.” Problems will arise, but we can count on God’s provision.

Bottom Line

Respond to whatever trial you’re facing right now with the resolve to trust God, endure, and rejoice, knowing He is in control.