Suffering

1 Peter 1:6-7 says In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  (7)  These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Trials are meant to be purifying experiences and God often allows the trial to come not to break us but to make us. Trials are those things which put us to the test.  We must remember that a test is never employed for the purpose of injury any more than we as teachers would seek to injure our students with them.  For example, a weight is attached to a rope, not to break it, but to prove it.  Also, pressure is applied to a boiler, not to burst it, but to certify its power of resistance.

Charles Spurgeon said it this way, "Indeed, it is the honor of faith to be tried. Shall any man say, ‘I have faith, but I have never had to believe under difficulties’?  Who knows whether thou hast any faith at all?   Shall a man say, ‘I have great faith in God, but I have never had to use it in anything more than the ordinary affairs of life, where I could probably have done without it as well as with it’?  Is this to the honor and praise of thy faith?  Dost thou think that such a faith as this will bring any great glory to God, or bring to thee any great reward?  If so, thou art mightily mistaken."