Every Trial Has an Expiration Date

from Sacred Surrender by Jaime Jamgochian

When you go through tribulation or an in-between season, you will inevitably feel opposition. However, that opposition is not there to stop you from moving forward but to help you overcome. When we press on regardless of what we’re facing, we gain ground and authority in more areas of our lives. As believers, we don’t get to treat God as though He’s a genie, expecting Him to answer our every prayer exactly how we prayed it. Our faith doesn’t work that way. Instead, our prayer should be to do the will of our Father. My friend, we do not see things here on earth the way God sees them. Our part is to live a surrendered, holy life unto our King, and to trust Him.

So, I ask you this: What do you need to surrender to the Lord? Is there something or someone that needs to be brought to the foot

I have learned that every trial has an expiration date. Things might not end how or when you want them to, but we live in times and seasons. Nothing lasts forever except eternity, but God promises to be with us every step of the way in this life. As believers, we often pray prayers that sound like “Jesus, make me more like You,” and we sing songs with verses that say “I trust You no matter what.” So why are we surprised when the trials of life come in order for us to become more like Him? Challenges that will refine us, convict us, and change us. Holiness is a word you rarely hear in the modern-day church, but isn’t that the goal of running our race?

It is the hard that makes us holy. Easy does not typically produce growth. It is difficulty that challenges us to press into Jesus. When I had to take a sabbatical from working and receive ongoing treatments at a Lyme center in Huntington, New York, I honestly felt like my life was taking many steps backward. In the natural (world), it certainly appeared that way. Leave my familiar home to move back in with my folks? Leave a job I love? Stop doing what I am most passionate about: traveling, singing, and ministering as my career? In some ways, I felt like a teenager living at home again with my parents and relying on them to take care of me. It was HARD, and it was HUMBLING. If you are in that season right now, my biggest piece of advice would be to fully embrace it. Allow God to do the work in and through you in that broken, but beautiful, place.

James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (ESV). During a season of hard, you will most likely feel humbled in many different ways. Maybe your body won’t be able to do what it always naturally did. This can be very humbling. Maybe you won’t have the energy to keep up with the schedule you once had. That can be very humbling. Or maybe you feel like everyone is looking at you and wondering why you are walking through something so difficult. I sure felt that from time to time. You wonder what people are saying or thinking about you. That can be incredibly humbling.

One of the things I have learned, though, is that a humble and contrite heart is what God seems to want the most. Maybe it is because He knows if we are not relying on our own strength and abilities, then we will be resting and relying on Him. It requires strength and focused commitment to say (and really mean), “Not my will but Your will be done, Father,” when you are walking through a season that makes no sense in the natural. I have noticed something, though. Most people I know who are making big splashes in the kingdom of God and seeing good fruit in their lives all have this one thing in common: God entrusted them to walk through a hard season that caused them to be humbled in many ways. There is a pruning that happens when we are walking through a difficult situation, which causes the dead and dying things in our lives to fall to the ground and be stripped away. If you are being humbled in a particular area, do not resist it but rather lean even further into the ways that God is shaping you through that challenging time. Our roots are forced to grow deeper when things are being shaken up on the surface. Most of the time, God is cutting off the branches in our lives that are not bearing the best fruit. Yield instead of resisting and rest instead of striving if you find yourself in this place.

For some, it might require you to stop ignoring the hard, the hurt, and the pain and really bring it to the feet of Jesus for the first time. I want to encourage you to pour out your heart to Him like King David shows us in the book of Psalms. He was so vulnerable and raw before the Lord. He held nothing back.

One of the most powerful things my pastor once said to me was, “It’s okay to tell God how you really feel about something.” The truth is, He already knows everything that is going on in our hearts because He created them. He knows our thoughts before we even think them, and He knows our words before we speak them. So, pour it all out to Him. Then, ask Him this question: “What in this hard situation are You trying to do to make me more holy?” Sit with that thought and see how He responds.

Maybe it will be a gentle nudge or a thought that there is some type of action you need to take. Maybe you need to apologize to someone or forgive yourself. Maybe He will lead you to a scripture to stand on during your difficult season. Whatever you do, don’t stop there. Don’t give in to the temptation to set up camp in the defeat, disappointment, guilt, shame, or whatever you are facing. Allow the Holy Spirit to help you to move through it and to keep running when you feel like retreating.

You might be wondering how that’s possible when the circumstances don’t seem to be changing. Well, that, my friend, is where the real work comes in. Your heart posture will shift, your perspective will begin to change, and your surrender will cause the situation to seem lighter even while you’re still in the trenches.

*Excerpted from Sacred Surrender © 2025 by Jaime Jamgochian. Used by permission of David C Cook. May not be further reproduced. All rights reserved.