Time Under Tension
Maria is originally from Silver Bay, MN and loves the outdoors. She is a mother of two awesome young children who keep up with her energetic lifestyle and passion for adventures. In fact, she and her husband enjoy the outdoors so much their family project has quickly turned into a business: Hike Paddle Ride Adventure Co. Maria currently coaches volleyball at a school in Duluth but has coached other high school sports like basketball in the past. She’s tough and dedicated in her hobbies and knows how to balance hard work with compassion. Maria’s love of adventure is equally matched with her love for the Lord. Her conversations and listening skills have helped a lot of students on and off the courts with their own faith adventures.
James 1:2-4 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
What does it mean to “count it as joy” when we are experiencing a trial? God isn’t saying to be happy that you are going through something difficult. Instead He’s saying be joyful and look forward to what God is going to do spiritually in our hearts through the trial. We can be joyful in knowing the result will be worth the fire.
Muscles. Diamonds. Faith. Three words that seem completely unrelated at first glance. Upon further thought and examination however, we can see illustrations in the first two that point to how God works in our lives to strengthen and beautify our faith.
How do muscles grow and develop? Time under tension. The muscle fibers are actually torn and broken down during exercise and the body responds by rebuilding, repairing and adding to the tissue, thus growing the muscle. The body is ensuring that the muscle can endure the same workload again. When a muscle is being strained and worked there is a fire and burning sensation in the muscle. That fire lets you know the muscle is being pushed to the point it needs to be to change. In God’s Word we find trials being referred to as fiery (1 Peter 4:12) and that when we are tried we are being refined as gold in a fire (1 Peter 1:6-9).
Diamonds are formed when carbon deposits deep within the earth (miles and miles below the surface) are subject to high temperatures and intense pressure. Some stones form quickly and others take much longer. I’m sure in your life you can think back to a period of time or experience that felt like an intense amount of heat and pressure, or maybe you’re enduring one right now. As I look back on my life I can say without a doubt the words of God in James 1:3 are true – “For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness”. The testing of my faith has solidified my faith and cemented it more and more in the truths of the Scripture. I serve a faithful God and He has brought me through all that I have experienced in my life.
You might think, well she probably hasn’t had to go through much, or maybe you feel like no one could possibly have endured as much as you have. What I know to be true is 2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. When we reach our breaking point and we cannot endure anymore and we have to let go and let God take our burden and strengthen us that’s when He is glorified! We have no choice but to give the glory to Him because we know that we couldn’t do it on our own.
When I was 13 I was the victim of some goofing off gone wrong. My back was severely injured but due to very poor medical care I was misdiagnosed. Then a few months later I had an extremely rare type of infection in my face that the Drs told my parents I could die from if the infection became worse and started affecting my brain. I had to be put on intense antibiotics and then had to have surgery – the first of many. The physical pain I was in was difficult to say the least. My back was neglected even more because of the pressing need to care for the infection. I would go on to live in pain so severe I would throw up, collapse, and even contemplated suicide. Sleep was extremely difficult and I often would end up soaked in sweat from the pain. The hours of the night would drag on and every minute felt like an hour. It was during this time though that God began developing in me a habit of praying while awake at night. I found it easier to switch my focus from the pain if I prayed for others and the Psalms were my go to for comfort and soothing my soul. I found David’s words pouring out his heart to God to be a relief – it was ok for me to share my heart with God too. 1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” It’s ok to tell God how you feel – He already knows what is in your heart. Eventually my back was re-x-rayed and at the age of 19 it was discovered that the vertebrae on my L5 had been snapped off completely and had healed improperly and had grown to my spine at a severe angle. 20 years later, I still endure pain. I have found things to help, and the pain I live in now has either become so normal to me or it really is less. I will never be the super fast kid I once was, and being pregnant was incredibly challenging. One mistake has led to a lifelong challenge for me.
Often through the years I have asked God the same question you no doubt have as well. “Why?” “What is the point of this?” Sometimes, we may never get to know. Sometimes it seems like God does reveal some of the purpose behind a trial. God is always at work in so many ways on so many levels, I’m certainly not going to pretend to know exactly why I have had to endure this trial outside of living in a fallen and broken world. However, this past fall I became closely connected to someone who was walking a path I had already endured. My years of experiencing some of the same things were a source of encouragement and support. For the first time in 20 years, I could truly be thankful for what I had experienced. Before, it seemed like the most senseless and pointless trial. Nothing good had ever seemed to come of it, and I truthfully didn’t feel as though I had grown exponentially spiritually through it all either. After I was able to tell the individual thank you for being the person I had been waiting 20 years for to help me make sense of it all, I was reminded of the verses in John 9. The disciples are questioning Jesus about a man who had been born and were wanting to know who had sinned to cause the blindness. Jesus tells them no one sinned, he was born blind so that God could be glorified by working in the man’s life. Our trials increase our faith and dependence on God, but I often wonder if our trials are more about others and pointing them to Christ than just our own faith.
Just like an intense workout or carbon being pressed and heated are creative forces, so is the testing of our faith. We know that our lives are not going to be without trials, but what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that we can be sure that God will be with us through it all. He will never leave us nor forsake us. His power is made perfect in our weakness. While trials are not fun, they are hard, and they can feel defeating, I encourage you to look forward with joy to the spiritual growth that is coming when you have passed through the fire to the other side.
