Want to Know How to Endure Trials and Grow Better?

Inside: Are trials bringing you down? Do you know that they can make you better if you let God do His work within you? Trials can increase our faith and make us more like Christ! A Christian Book Review on going through trials and how to survive and grow through them. This book will help you find the lessons and grow in faith!

*Disclosure: Post may contain affiliate links. See our full disclosure here.

*Disclosure: Post may contain affiliate links. See our full disclosure here.

Are you struggling?

Are you a Christian and life has you going through a hard time? Did you know that Jesus told us that as Christians we aren’t immune to problems, but actually expect them?

Expectations Versus Reality

While I wish this wasn’t true because those hard times of life can sucker-punch us right in the gut…knowing that we can expect and prepare for them brings me comfort.

I recently got the pleasure of reviewing a book by Scott LaPierre titled, Enduring Trials God’s Way: A Biblical Recipe for Finding Joy in Suffering.

Scott’s perspective on trials was eye-opening and backed up with lots of Scripture.

The main truth I received from this book is how we respond to the trials in our life makes all the difference.

Are you letting the hard times of life make us better or bitter?

Biblical Examples

From the Bible, we can read of the end results of two different individuals: King Asa and King David.

King Asa

Asa began his reign fueled by a passion for God. He removed family members that didn’t believe in God and got rid of the idol worship in Judah.
Asa would seek God for wise counsel and advice as He ruled Judah.

(2 Chronicles 14:4, NLT).

⁴ He commanded the people of Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his law and his commands.

Through time and fear of enemy invasion, Asa lost his zeal for God.

Slowly, God wasn’t the first person he turned to.

And eventually, he didn’t seek out God when struck with the disease, disaster, and defeat.

Where God had led Asa to victory at the beginning of his reign was finally overcome with bitterness toward God and devotion to Asa’s own willpower and strength.

Asa continued on the path farther from God and his commandments to actually do things against God.

Asa could have repented and returned to God, but bitterness and lack of trust caused him to travel far from the Lord.

King David

David is remembered as the man who followed God’s heart.

Maybe we put him on a pedestal because we compare how closely God was with him and we question if we could ever get that close.

King David experienced many trials in his life. Adultery, murder, running for his life, depression, and despair; all these hardships could have made David become angry and bitter at God.

Instead, these trials increased David’s faith and devotion to God.

The problems proved that David couldn’t handle life on his own and needed Someone to depend on to help him.

King David wasn’t perfect and he chose the wrong actions many times in life, but he repented and drew closer to God.

Through his trials, he became more wholehearted and devoted to God.

Learning from these Biblical Men

The contrast we see between Asa and David was wholehearted devotion throughout the trials versus self-devotion and becoming bitter at God.

These examples show us how we can always return from sin, and from running away from God, and letting trials increase our faith.

Asa’s example shows us what pride, bitter feelings, and distrust can cause us to eventually fall away.

This Christian book review of Enduring Trails God’s Way teaches us that we can learn, be prepared, and find success with God’s help to grow, find greater faith, and learn the proper response to all hard struggles in life.

Are We Making Wise Choices?

It’s important to note that many times the struggles we endure are due to the wrong choice we have made.

For example, we might worry about a situation and then find ourselves battling the effects of stress and anxiety.

If we examine this further, we realize that the sin of not trusting God with our lives has gotten us into the struggle in the first place.

Many of the trials we find ourselves in are due to sin whether it was self-inflicted or a by-product of living in this fallen world.

God promises to use everything we go through to work for our good if we let God do His work in us.

(Romans 8:28, NLT).
²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together^[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is this one:
Scott says in the book, “I am thankful God loves me enough to get this sin out of my life and help me produce the corresponding fruit.”

A Must-Read Christian Book Review

I think that every Christian should read this book because we all fall into the mindset that when struggles keep coming and life gets hard that somehow God has forgotten us. Maybe we start to question His faithfulness and goodness.

This book explains how we can count trials as joy and what trials can produce if we let them do their work in us. We can find maturity, and patience, and become more like Christ through the process.

We can, “face trials because we know who wins in the end!”

Isn’t this the driving factor?

We know that Christ is victorious and if we trust wholeheartedly, we can endure the trials because we know God loves us, is making us better, and we will find victory in the End.

God doesn’t promise to remove the stones from the path, but He does promise to make them stepping-stones and not stumbling blocks. He promises to help us climb higher because of the difficulties of life.
― Warren W. Wiersbe

Many thanks to Scott LaPierre for providing a free copy of this book to facilitate my Christian book review!

To further connect with Scott LaPierre or to read more of his books: Scott LaPierre Author Site

Enduring Trials God’s Way: A Biblical Recipe for Finding Joy in SufferingMy God Hath Been My Support: Seven Keys to Understanding and Enduring Personal TrialsWhen God Doesn’t Make SenseYou’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent TimesUnshakable Hope: Building Our Lives on the Promises of God