I think that is true. You can talk about how much faith you have, etc., but how do you when a trial comes? There was a man that went to our church that had a family. He was always witnessing to people he worked with about God and salvation. When he lost his job, he was fine with it. One of his coworkers asked him, "how can you be so calm about losing your job". His answer was, how can I tell you to have faith if I don't! I think that says it all!
Been raking my brain for a dating example; here's one that might come close. Seemed like a huge trial at the time, since I had just became a Christian then:
The last guy I dated was a super cool guy; went to my church, in the choir, helped out with all the same youth activities and stuff I did. Cute, taller than me :) Anywho, started dating, and shortly after we were officially dating (like a month maybe) he started trying to spend the night at my house on Saturday nights, since he lived a whole 30 minutes away from church. I had just accepted Christ earlier that year (2005), and he was my first Christian boyfriend, so though it was kinda weird but he was a Christian so he was of the no-sex-before-marriage-ideal right? So I let him stay on the couch. Course, he tries to sneak in bed, and I have to kick him out. What in the world? I totally was thinking that since I was a Christian now, and he seemed like he was too, that I wouldn't have to worry about a guy trying to get in my pants so early. Anyway, tried to keep dating him, but didn't work out. He must have talked about it with other guys at my church because after we quit dating, I got a couple of good-for-you comments from a couple guys. Then he started dating another chick who started our church (Maybe he just dating all the newcomers?) I wanted so bad to say something to her, but I didn't. They seemed pretty happy together, and both eventually quit coming to church after a few months.
That really felt like a trial at the time - he was such a good guy in public, but not so much when we were alone. I just felt that I was supposed to feel safe around Christian guys cause they were supposed to be different, right? Blew that bubble - will definitely be a little smarter about things next time. And then that brings up something else - if he was one to go around trying to sleep with all the newcomer ladies in the church, shouldn't a male person have spoken to him? Perhaps someone had and he ignored them. Should you go to a pastor with that kind of thing? I mean, he was a pretty upstanding member of the church from the public view.
Depending on the structure of your church, yes you should have spoken either to a deacon or the pastor. What he was doing was a sin, and the church should have confronted him for it. From the sound of it, he was trying that out on all the new women, because the ones that had been around for a while new him MO. I wouldn't be surprised that many people knew about him, but didn't want to say anything. It is the church's responsibility to deal with such situations.
i dont really know how well this fits this topic, but its something i heard awhile ago that i thought was interesting. if you squeeze a tube of toothpaste what should come out? toothpaste right? if God squeezes (trials, tribulations etc.) a christian what should come out? just somthing interesting to think about i guess.
