Breaking Murphy’s Law

It wasn’t a Monday, but it might as well have been.  There were only 34 eggs in the 36 count carton. The brand new package of Oreos was two cookies short of a full row.  The cashier overloaded the bag and it ripped into three pieces as I put it into the car.

These are trivial annoyances.  First world problems. With the right attitude, they’re easily brushed off, easily forgotten.  But why is it that our happiness is so opposed?  

I can’t be the only one who has experienced this.  A spiritual high immediately followed by a lost temper over something petty.  A good thing, a wonderful thing, whose heels are nipped and dogged by not-so-good things. We’re chipped away, worn out, beaten down until we wonder if happiness was a figment of our imagination, while the inevitable reality is disappointment.

We have an adversary.  An opponent. One who is against us.  And sometimes he doesn’t come against us with big guns blazing.  Instead he aims for soul extermination by a thousand tiny paper cuts.

It’s really endurance testing.

I have a friend whose job is performance testing for a car company.  He takes their vehicles to places with extreme conditions and pushes them to their limits.  If an engine holds up well for ten miles, no one’s particularly impressed. But how does it do for one thousand miles, one hundred thousand miles in Death Valley?  Can it go the distance?

Faith is the engine, the powerhouse, of our lives.  It determines our direction and drives us forward. We need a faith that can stand up to examination, that endures under extreme circumstances, that doesn’t give way under intense trial.

Because trials will come.  There’s no doubt about it.  Jesus didn’t mince His words when He said, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows” (John 16:33, emphasis added). Soon after He told Simon Peter, “Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail” (Luke 22:31-32).

The Old French word for sift is the root of the word trial. Trials sift our faith. They wear us down with their message that things are never going to be any different, they’re never going to be better. And in doing so, they press us against the filter of our faith.

The enemy wants to convince us that our faith makes no difference – that we’re always going to be 2 cookies short, that there’s always going to be something that makes our happiness incomplete.  But faith believes that disappointment isn’t inevitable. Because of Christ, a different outcome is possible. Our joy can be complete.  It will be complete. After the sifting, after we’ve stood the test, we come through refined, stronger, better.  Not lacking anything.

These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. 1 Peter 1:7