“But he knows the way that I take; and when he has tried me,
I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10).

The above passage caught my attention recently as I was reading “Streams in the Desert.” The author focused on the sovereign manner in which God uses the storms of life to refine us like gold. As I thought about that, it struck me anew that faith truly grows during the storms of life.

Faith is that God-given ability, when properly exercised that brings the unseen into plain view. Faith makes impossible things possible. It grows during the storms of life. It finds good soil and grows most rapidly to maturity during storms. For example, the strongest trees are found not in the thick shelter of the forest, but out in the open where they are buffeted from every direction by the elements. These are the trees that produce wood with the greatest strength.

And so it is in spiritual things. When you see a person of great spiritual strength and maturity, consider that their walk with the Lord most assuredly included storms that produced the strength and maturity we seek after and admire. Such people have learned that the path of faith is one of sorrow and joy, suffering and healing, comfort, tears and smiles, trials and victories, conflicts and triumphs, and also hardships, dangers, persecutions, misunderstanding, troubles and distress. These are the elements, the fertilizer, that make us grow in faith.

There is a deep lesson in this for each of us. You see, our natural response is to run from the storms as if they are bad. That’s not the way it works in God’s economy. Storms are not bad things from God’s perspective. It’s his way of producing gold. As contrary to human nature as it sounds, instead of running from the storm, we must (by faith) come to see that God does his best work when we run right into them. God promises to be there to meet us in the center of the storm.

I know you well enough to understand that there are storms in your life. Although the storms take a variety of forms, they are storms nonetheless. The winds are howling, the foundations are shaking, the windows are rattling, the water is rising, the sky is dark and the lightning is flashing. If that describes your situation, please understand that Job’s words speak to the depth of your heart. He wrote, “He knows the way I take.” That tells me that God is right there in the midst of the storm alongside of you. He’s there to strengthen, encourage, support and buttress your heart. If that describes you, embrace what God is doing for his glory and your good. The soil of your heart will never be the same.