Someone recently asked me if all our trials involve spiritual warfare. It was a good, I thought, and an important one to think about. My response was that satan preys on human weakness. And let’s define “weakness” as an area in our lives in which we are needing to learn to depend more on the Lord.
A hardship or difficulty puts pressure on that area of weakness — that lack-of-trust area.
It is a “trial” when it is God who is growing us. He brings hardship into our lives in seeking to strengthen us in an area of weakness. Hence the purpose for the difficulty is a victorious one: the trial is given to be overcome by growing more trust in the Lord. Hence we are to consider our trials “pure joy” writes the apostle James.
On the other hand, it is a “temptation” when satan is trying to get us to cave into a weakness by getting us to keep trying to solve the problem on our own.
Notice that in either case, it is our weakness that is the object of God’s attention and/or satan’s assault. From God we hear something like: “I’ve got this. Just trust me and let me lead.” From satan we hear something like: “You’ve got this. Get after it and straighten it out.” When we hear that we must, “submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”
