- May 17, 2022
- 3 min read

Trials that shape us

“We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.” – Henry Ward Beecher

The Trials That Humble Us

Sometimes our church gets prayer requests for nonbelievers or Christians who are choosing to do some foolish things. I think it’s unwise to pray for all of their problems to be solved because we get between the rock (problems) and the hammer (God). If we are constantly running around bailing people out of their problems (actually enabling them), and ones of their own making, we might be interfering with God, Who is trying to shape them by trials on His sovereign anvil. It’s better to pray for God’s will to be done because trials will frequently humble a person and make them seek God, which is what He was trying to do in the first place. If we get between the rock and the hammer, we are trying to end their trials, which God has sent to shape their lives for the better.

The Trials That Conform Us

Trials are what God clearly uses to shape and conform us into His own image (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18). I think of Jonah, who had to be swallowed by a giant fish to finally be humbled by God. Only after this did he carry out his mission to witness to Nineveh (Jonah 1:17). Surely if God had not sent this trial to Jonah, he would have kept running and would never have gone on his God-given mission. One way God uses trials to shape us is to humble us and make us see that we have no true purpose outside the will of God.

The Trials That Shape Us

God once told Jeremiah to go to a potter and observe what he did with the clay (Jer. 18:1-6). You probably already know that God is the Potter and we are the clay. A potter must apply pressure to shape the clay so that it is conformed into the image that he desires. Trials have a way of doing that. Pressure shapes us, smoothing out any rough edges, and then the vessel passes through the fire (of trials). This sets the vessel into a particular shape, and only then is the vessel useful. God wants no leaky vessels. Trials (the shaping and the fire) make vessels that can hold what He wants them to hold.

Conclusion

Every Christian needs to understand that they are always on the anvil by God’s design, and it is by trials that God is shaping them for higher things–humbling the clay, conforming the clay, and shaping the clay into what He sees will be best for them and for His own glory.

by Jack Wellman

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“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

“If your relationship with God is only powerful enough to carry you through sunny days and overflowing bank accounts, it cannot and will not be a beacon of hope to a hopeless and hurting world.”

Rebecca Lusignolo

--Adversity 2007

“In You, Lord, I live and move and have my being.”

Based on Acts 17:18

“If every part of my life

is with You

and in You, Lord,

then everything is made good:

even the things I struggle not to resent,

even the draining and hurtful encounters,

Let every moment of my life be Your moment,

whether or not I consciously remember You,