How can I learn to trust Christ more when I am suffering?

When the believing soul is under trial the recurrence to God as its source and hope is the natural movement of faith. … Nor is there a sweeter time for the soul that trusts Him than the time of trial.

Now, we may say, he enters the valley of Baca; it is the place not only of trial, but of tears. He is brought into deep exercise of soul before God. Self is judged. This is the young Christian's valley of Baca. It is the exercise of soul, rather than the trial, that makes it a well — that digs the pools. He has now found out that a desire to live to God's glory may turn the fairest scenes and the brightest prospects of earth into a vale of tears — a place of humiliation and sorrow. But if there be simple faith in God, the dreariest part of the desert may become a fruitful field, and where nothing but disappointment and distress were expected, the richest blessings may be found. But, on the other hand, if he gets under the power of his circumstances, and is tempted to look to the world or the flesh as a resource, his tears will be yet more bitter and more abundant. The trial, no doubt, is enough to test the strongest faith and the bravest heart, especially if we have to wait long for the answer to our prayers. But our God will have us to confide in His love alone and to learn what He is to us, however painful the process.

Secondly, we are reminded that there is a need for these sorrows, for these trials are for “a season, if need be”. The Father does not cause His children a needless tear. The needs be is to prove our faith. This does not mean to prove whether we have faith, but rather to make manifest the preciousness of the faith we have. Gold is not put into the fire to prove that it is gold, but to bring out the precious qualities of the metal. So God proves our faith by various trials to bring out the precious qualities of our faith. Faith, counting upon God in the trial, leads to submission to what God allows: faith in God enables the soul to wait in patience (James 1:3). Faith in God enables the believer to be steadfast against the attacks of the enemy (1 Peter 5:9). The soul may have true faith, but when the trial comes these blessed qualities of faith — submission, patience, steadfastness, confidence and dependence upon God — become manifest.

Satan buffeted Paul the Apostle, but the Lord turned the buffetings to blessings, and that fact made Paul endure, sustained as he was in his sufferings by the all-sufficient grace of the Lord. And so it shall be even now. Many of God’s dear children are suffering the buffetings of Satan, some are homeless, some injured, some bereaved, some continually anxious about those who are dearer than life, but in these sufferings they are learning what God is in His sustaining grace and in the strength and courage that His presence gives them. All these things are used of God as chastening, and that does not mean punishment but correction, it is really child-training that we might be partakers of His holiness. “But no chastening for the present seems joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down” (Heb. 12:11-12). The result is assured to us, if we are exercised by the trial, and God will not suffer us to be tried beyond what we are able. Then let faith rear its head in the storm, let it lay hold of God with a strong grip, let it speak out with a confident voice “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Faith tested is faith strengthened; it is to have learnt your weakness, but to have learnt the faithfulness of God, His tender care even in sending the difficulties, that we may be there with Him.

55 In this faithful walk the Christian meets with the fiery darts of the wicked one; the more faithful he is, the more also will Satan seek to trouble him; if he can cause a wicked thought to cross the heart, that is a dart; but the soul of the faithful is at peace; nothing can trouble him, though Satan tries to disturb this peace. If secret self-complacency glides unto the heart, it is the enemy who seeks to take away our confidence. We see Christ in this calm and perfect confidence in the midst of His suffering (John 18:11), peace keeping His soul; not that He could feel joy in drinking the cup, but He felt it in receiving the cup from the hand of Him who gave it to Him: nothing could shake His confidence; all the darts of Satan were quenched on the shield of faith. At the moment when He was broken-hearted, crushed by the iniquity of men, He said, "I thank thee, O Father," Matt. 11:25. When we meet with a trial, instead of complaining of others and reproaching them, we ought to take refuge in God; but frequently we do the very opposite, we distrust God; if we meet with difficulties, we reflect on God, and reproach Him with the iniquity of man. Satan seeks to produce mistrust; this is why the apostle says we must take the shield of faith.

"Is this love?" whispers the arch-fiend to the bereaved heart. What purpose could it serve to take that loved, useful and needed one away? Who can fill his or her place? Earth never can, you know. Is this what you call love? Can you believe that this is love to you? And the poor, weakly, bedridden one, he will also be sure to tempt to impatience and to hard thoughts of God. Such are the wicked suggestions — the poisoned arrows of the enemy; and which are sure to fly thick and fast into the unguarded soul, especially at a time when the heart is overwhelmed with sorrow and sorely tried by repeated disappointment. Nothing but the shield of faith can quench such darts of unbelief. Nevertheless, faith will always vindicate God and His truth, however heavy or sweeping the stroke. It will calmly rest in the truth, that the Father's love is the same — the same as when He gave His well-beloved Son to die on Calvary. Before such faith all enemies and temptations are powerless.

“I have prayed for thee.” “My grace is sufficient for thee.” These words abide for us in their fullest meaning. The first casts a hedge about our faith and will preserve it inviolate in every time of testing, even when the testing is the result of our own folly and failure, as Peter’s was. The second is the pledge that the Lord’s personal grace and strength will uphold us and carry us through the testing and turn the burdens into blessings, the trials into triumphs and the sorrows into songs, as in Paul’s case. We have committed the eternal welfare of our souls unto Him and He will honour the trust and we may with the greatest confidence trust Him at all times, assured that He will carry us through to the glory of God and present us faultless there with exceeding joy.

There is nothing new in this, it has been his way from the beginning, but by these means he hopes to rob suffering saints of their confidence in God consequently of their peace of heart, and to mix bitterness and rebellion in their cup of sorrow. But in distress what comfort there is in these words, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” What confidence, what courage they impart to the soul.

What a comfort lies here for all about whom the storms of trouble sweep! The Lord is with them, and every sorrow may be laid at His feet and every difficulty told to Him. That life which appears to have the least sorrow has its difficulties and burdens, and none of us have sufficient wisdom or strength to deal with these. But He is sufficient for little trials and for big, and so precious are we to Him that He will never abandon us. Only let it be realized that the grace of God brought Him down to us, not only to save us, but to abide with us , and that He is ever by our side to support and succour us and to sympathize with us, and it will change the aspect of every sorrow and produce the song where the sigh has been. It is the realization of His presence that can lead the saint of God to say, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for THOU ART WITH ME; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me” (Ps. 23). And if “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Heb. 13:5-6).