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One of the results of the pandemic is that I now have a gym in my basement. Over the course of these many months, my teenage sons added various workout machines and equipment to what used to be a playroom. There’s now a bench, free weights, a pull-up bar, and a squat rack, all to help them in their strength training.
As anyone who works out can tell you, resistance is necessary for developing muscles; they grow and strengthen as they push against a force or weight. Resistance training—pushing, lifting, and pulling objects—helps the body stay healthy and strong.
This is true for our spiritual lives as well. Yet while we readily understand the need for resistance in our physical health, we aren’t so quick to accept its role in our spiritual lives. At least, I don’t. I prefer my days to go smoothly and as planned. I don’t want to encounter any challenges or obstacles in my path. I resist what is uncomfortable or hard.
Yet the Bible teaches that hardship is like those weights now stacked in my basement; it serves to strengthen us in the faith. Whether it’s the daily inconveniences and interruptions that frustrate us or the painful losses, conflicts, and temptations we face, hardship provides opportunities for us to grow in faith and depend on the Lord’s grace and provision. The hard days that push and pull and stretch us serve a greater purpose: to transform us into the image of Christ.
Paul wrote that suffering and hardship develops character in believers:
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:3–5)
Suffering isn’t good in itself; it is often the result of sin and evil. But God uses what is not good to produce Christlike character in us.
This means that we need a future perspective on our struggles. We must look beyond the here and now and to what God will accomplish through our trials. As an athlete pushes through the pain, knowing that it results in increased strength and endurance and a medal at the finish line, we keep our gaze set on eternity, when we will be perfected at the day of Christ Jesus. Peter encourages us:
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6–7)
Resistance plays an important role in our spiritual lives. When we face hardship, may we respond in joy, knowing that it shapes us into the image of Christ.