Overcoming Deep Sorrow in Trials

Consider it all joy … when you encounter various trials.
James 1:2

What trial is causing you the deepest sorrow today? God’s joy is a gift of grace to us as we encounter hardships, tribulation, and persecution in this world. This supernatural joy, given through God’s Spirit, transcends all trying conditions of life. Your joy …

• is not dependent on circumstances. It is based on the spiritual realities of God’s goodness, His unconditional love, and His ultimate victory over sin and darkness.
• is not based on your efforts, accomplishments, or willpower. It is based on the truth about your relationship with the Father through His Son.
• is not merely an emotion. It is the result of choosing to look beyond what appears to be true in your life to what is true about your life in Christ.

Your sorrowful trial may be a physical affliction, an unbelieving husband, the loss of a home or job, the deterioration of finances, the breakdown of a family, the turning away of a child. Or is your trial a difficult season as a wife or mother, daughter or daughter-in-law? Maybe it is an unknown future as you look down the road of life? Here are four things you can do right now:

1. Identify the trial that causes you the greatest grief.
2. Offer to God the sacrifice of your praise (Hebrews 13:15)–even if it is offered with tears.
3. Consider that trial a joy for what God will do in your life as a result of it (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:1-5).
4. Offer Him a sacrifice of praise!

Do you yearn for a closer walk with God? For a greater understanding of what it means to let Him live through you? For the marks of His presence in your life? A Woman’s Walk with God is an invitation to experience the joys of moment-by-moment living in the Lord’s power–and producing the fruit of the Spirit in every circumstance!

Read Overcoming Deep Sorrow in Trials on Elizabeth & Jim George.