Trials that Transform: New Book
I wonder if you remember the film Evan Almighty. The comedian Steve Carell plays a modern-day Noah who is building an ark. In one scene, God (played by Morgan Freeman – of course) talks with Evan’s wife, Joan, whose life is quietly unravelling.Her husband is building an ark in the garden. The neighbours are watching. And whatever normal life looked like, it is slipping away.Into that confusion, God, who appears as a waiter, asks her a series of questions that reframes everything.
“If someone prays for patience, does God give them patience, or the opportunity to be patient? If they ask for courage, does He give courage, or the chance to be courageous? If they long for a deeper family life, does He flood them with warm feelings, or does He place them in situations where love must be chosen?
It is a disarming thought. Because it suggests that the very things we resist may be the very means by which God answers us.
I’ve spent the last year trying to write a book that gently explores how suffering shapes the soul. It’s been challenging to write as I’m aware of how devastating, confusing and bewildering our suffering can be. Trite answers will not do. Clichés do more harm than good. Declaring‘God will work it for the good’ sounds like an empty promise when you're in the valley.
Yet the testimony of Scripture, and of the saints across the centuries, reminds us that spiritual growth rarely comes through ease and comfort. More often, it is forged in disruption, in delay, and in disappointment.
The prayer for patience is answered in a child who never sleeps. The prayer for courage is answered in the moment of fear and vulnerability. The prayer for deeper love is answered in relationships that stretch us, not those that simply soothe us.
This is not because God enjoys the discomfort. It is because He is committed to something deeper than a nice, perfect, stress-free life. He is shaping the soul.
The apostle Paul writes in Romans 5 that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. James 1:2-4 is even more direct:“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.”
This is not abstract theology. Again and again, God meets His people not beyond affliction, but within it, shaping a deeper trust, a humbler spirit and a more resilient hope.
I’ve come to believe we can have confidence that God is at work in our suffering Why? Because at the heart of the Christian faith is not a theory of suffering, but the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At a cosmic level, God confronts both sin and suffering together. Sin is the root. Suffering is its bitter fruit. Not all suffering is the result of personal sin, but all suffering is the result of a world where sin has entered and corrupted everything.
And what does God do?
He does not stand at a distance and offer advice. He enters the mud and blood of life. He stepped into our world of tears and death and faced rejection, betrayal, and injustice. Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was crucified on a Roman cross that speaks not of divine detachment, but of divine solidarity.
The writer John Stott recounted in his book ‘The Cross of Christ’ how he once visited a refugee camp where men had been beaten, humiliated, and left with wounds that went far deeper than the body.
The barracks where they lived were little more than sheds that were cramped, filthy, and smelling of sweat, fear, and despair. As he walked through one of these rooms, Stott noticed a rough sketch on the wall: a simple charcoal drawing of Jesus hanging on the cross. No halo. No soft lines. Just a suffering man, gaunt, wounded, and abandoned.
Under the sketch were two words, scratched in shaking handwriting:“He understands.” Stott said that he stopped in his tracks. Because here, in this place of horror, these men had somehow grasped the truth many of us forget: in Jesus, God has stepped into the world’s pain.
In the death of Jesus, sin is forgiven; in the resurrection of Jesus, suffering is overcome.
Right now, however, we live in a time of ‘now and not yet’, between the victory of Christ’s death blow to sin and suffering at the cross, and the eventual consummation of that victory when He returns and eradicates all traces of sin and suffering forever.
So, my book,Trials that Transform, seeks to offer twelve biblical pathways for navigating the spiritual growth that can occur in affliction. It draws on nearly three decades of pastoral ministry and is an attempt to help us recognise what God may be doing in seasons we would never choose. Each chapter ends with helpful questions and a spiritual practice that helps the reader apply what they’ve learnt.
Whether you are reflecting on your own suffering or preparing for it, or helping someone endure a difficult season, I pray this book gives hope for all that God can do through your trial.
Book review by Abi Flavell (River City Church, Hull)
“I wasn’t expecting a book about suffering to do me so much good. If living in an imperfect world that wounds us is like holding our breath as we learn to cope and survive, then this book gives us permission to exhale. Matt’s gentle wisdom guides readers without flippant platitudes or unsatisfying answers, offering an oddly compelling big-picture pathway through life’s painful trials. The practical processing tools at the end of each chapter left me better equipped to navigate perplexing seasons and more certain that Jesus is present with us in the furnace.”
