Trial is a season of unexpected and open ended pain that tests our faith.

James 1 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Read that first sentence again in James 1 WHEN troubles come or the NIV says ” WHEN you face trials of many kinds”…

In the Sunday sermon, this past weekend, the guest preacher said ” you don’t chose your trials”.

As much as I agree, we don’t go to God’s rolodex and say “here, I can handle this trial with everything I have going on”; or “here, let’s pick ‘B2’, that trial looks like one I can beat.

I do wonder how many times we say we want to believe but we become the seed that fell among the thorns in Matthew 13

The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced.

So in essence because God loves us so and He wants the best for us “we do choose to be in a trial”. We choose this first with our disobedience to Gods word. We also allow worry and the lure of wealth and popularity, to choke out the flame of obedience and love we have for God and doing the things He wants us to do.