When you and I walk into the gym, we know that we're about to have some trials and hard times as we begin to pick up heavy weights and put them back down. Or maybe we're doing some aerobic exercise and sweating it out. But we do that because we know that at the end of all of that there is hopefully going to be a healthier you and a healthier me with a stronger body as a result of that workout.

But when it happens in life and it's not something we're choosing, that's when it really gets hard. God tries to encourage us in those moments in James 1:2-4 where he says:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

The implication here is obvious: trials are equal to the testing of our faith. God can use trials to test us in our faith. In the same way, when we suffer various trials in our lives, James says that we build up endurance in our Christian walk.

Trials are the means through which something beneficial happens in the life of a Christian. Not only are trials and the testing of our faith meant to benefit us, but it’s meant to benefit us in a way that we develop something that we would not develop without the trials.