There are two ways God can relieve a trial. The first is by taking it away. For some reason, this is what Christians seem to pray for. The other way is to learn what you lack that makes the present situation a trial, and by doing so, overcome it. How can you know which relief you encountered? You imagine going through a similar trial again, and you ask yourself if it would be as difficult. When you overcome something, you can easily do it again.
Having a trial taken away is like going through all the trouble of dieting without losing weight. Trials are not meant to be an arbitrary test of our trust in God. Rather, they are meant to be a vehicle through which we recognize and obtain something we previously lacked. The goal in this life is to get to the point where you can face any possible situation in this world without losing any trust in God and without any degrading of your character. To maintain godly character and perfect faith in the face of any situation encountered in this world is to overcome all things. It is required for (and is the definition of) salvation. To avoid trials is to avoid salvation.
Job distrusted God, asking him why he was punishing him. God wasn’t punishing Job. He was blessing him! Job should have said, “Lord, I trust in your judgment, and I rejoice in these trials. They feel like more than I can bear, but I know you love me more than I comprehend, and that I’ve been perfectly faithful to you, so I know that anything you ordain in my life is for my benefit, and according to your wisdom. I submit completely to your will in this and all things, and I thank you for loving me enough to subject me to what initially hurts in order to help me progress. Please teach me what I lack, that I might overcome this and all things.”
In the end, God blessed Job with more than he had before. He learned from what he had gone through, but he didn’t learn everything he could have. He drew a line in the sand before he had learned everything the trial offered him, saying “this is all I’d like to deal with, Lord. I’m done. I quit.” It is very rare indeed to find someone who will not quit, who trusts God, who will not draw a line in the sand and say, “I will go no further, Lord.
This is the limit of the trust I have for you.” The person who refuses to quit, whose trust in God is unshakable, will progress straight to salvation. It doesn’t matter where they start, or how long it takes, but they will obtain eternal life as sure as the sun rises.
Don’t ever quit. Consider Joseph of Egypt. Imagine how he felt, having done the right thing in his young life, and still ending up a slave. He didn’t complain that we know of. He didn’t make an ordeal of it. Why not? He trusted God. Even in those bleak circumstances, he clung to the belief that God loved him and was just. This gave him the perspective he needed to do his best to live according to the light he had, even as a slave. Then God blessed him to lose that position and he ended up a prisoner. He just kept living the light he had. Then God freed him from the prison and made him ruler of Egypt.
With every character in the scriptures, you can study the events of their lives and identify times when, through abasing themselves and enduring well what God sent them, they were able to acquire more truth, overcome more darkness, and become a brighter light by becoming capable of reflecting more of God’s glory through their character.
God's influence can systematically replace our character with his, but only if we provide the right environment. Like fossilization, it takes a great deal of pressure (in the form of trials) and it requires purging our harmful previous desires, behaviors, and nature (in the form of repentance). Fossils are not created just from burying bones. Fossils are very rare. Bones are not. Buried bones almost always just rot. What makes a fossil? Incredible pressure, but this is not all. Recently, scientists were able to simulate fossilization, but their experiments failed until they realized that all fossils are found in sedimentary rock, whose porous nature allows volatile degradation materials to escape the body.
When we don’t quit, God compounds our blessings. He compounds what he can teach us and what blessings we can receive. Joseph did not cash in his chips, and the blessings kept compounding. We cash out our chips when we tell God we have had enough or when we show him the same by not living with gusto and fervor in whatever situation he’s placed us.