“Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”     ~James 1:3

Why do seemingly bad things happen when we're trusting in God for the complete opposite? Why does He allow us to struggle when He could make this life easy, breezy? Simple . . . because faith without testing is useless. What kind of faith does it take when everything goes our way?

Why does the above verse say that these tests of faith produce patience? Does it really take patience to keep our faith alive? Yes, without patience we will give up before we see the effect of our prayers. When we give up and stop believing before we see results, we are no longer enabling God’s outcome.

Patience is simply the byproduct of God testing our faith. It’s through the process of surviving these storms that our faith grows, and patience develops.

God allows the storms. He allows to waves of tribulation to crash against the hull of our lives so that we lean on Him, even when a good outcome seems impossible.

But I hate problems . . . 

Understanding that our faith grows through tribulation is the key to accepting our problems as faith food. It is when we have problems that we are forced to make a choice; to trust God for the best possible outcome or believe all is lost! Once we learn to trust Him no matter what’s happening—allow Him to come through in His way and time—our faith will grow. 

“…but let us also rejoice in our tribulations: knowing that tribulation worketh patience…”   ~Romans 5:3 ERV

This is exactly what Paul was referring to when he said we should rejoice in our tribulations. This never made sense to me, to be happy when I have problems. But I now understand that without problems we don’t need faith because we don’t need God. But through our troubles, we learn to lean wholly on the Lord and wait out His solutions. In so doing we develop patience and increase our faith by seeing the end results of our answered prayers. We all need a refuge from the storms of life, and that refuge is faith in God.

God will make a way, even when there seems to be no way. That is a guaranteed promise from Him. I understand this can be hard to believe when we feel like we've tried everything possible to fix our situation, and nothing has worked. The difficulties of this journey here on earth are, in reality, the trials that grow our faith. These are the times that make us understand that indeed, His ways are not our ways.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord.”   ~Isaiah 55:8

God shows us endless examples of this very thing throughout the Bible. Can you just imagine what the Israelites must have thought when Moses led them to the Red Sea? [Exodus 14] The Egyptian army was right on their tail in hot pursuit. They were trapped, there was no way out! They were literally trapped between a mountain and an ocean with absolutely nowhere to go. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Their death was imminent but Moses didn’t give up, he just kept praying for God to make a way.

These are the times in life when God really wows us! These are also the occasions when His mighty ways are not hindered by physics. He can and will do as much as our faith will allow Him to do. He wants to show Himself to us. He wants us to muster up some miracle size faith so He can change our situation no matter how hopeless it might seem—to just believe that He will come through, get out of His way, take a step into the fear of unknown and watch a miracle manifest.

God will part our sea of obstacles and make a way for us to go forward into His will . . . if we only believe!

We must learn to hold tight to what we know—that God will somehow lead us through our insurmountable sea of problems—somehow, someway, He will bring us through. We must know that He will give us a miracle, but only if we believe He can. Don't miss out on your miracles because of unbelief! 

“And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” ~Matthew 13:58 NIV