Maybe someone reading this needs to hear these words:

That super stressful, dreadfully unfair, horrible, no-good, unjust, despicable thing you’re dealing with is something that God has allowed, perhaps even ordained, in this season of your life.

I’ll admit that I need to truly wrestle with those words myself. 

God is not surprised by the things that seem to hit us out of nowhere. He is Sovereign, and He allows those seasons for a reason. There is purpose in the pain.

Recently, some elements of unfairness have been unfurling in my life. Certain situations made me angry. They caused high levels of stress. They put me on the defensive. They rattled me like I was made of a bunch of empty cans caught in a hurricane. 

But then God laid this unusual, so-not-me prayer in my heart. His Spirit led me to say:

“Lord, may I be transformed by the trampling.”

 Wait. What?!

God, I want to be livid about this.  I want to fight against it. I definitely don’t want to be “transformed” by it!

But I couldn’t argue with the prayer God sparked in my heart.  To lay down my rights. To die to self. To allow the trampling.

But, Lord, how can this be a good thing?

Here’s what I see in Scripture:

James 1 reminds us to consider it joy when we face trials of many kinds. 

Romans 12 challenges us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.

Matthew 16 teaches us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.

The trampling is training ground.

Trials expose my heart. They shine a light on my blinding selfishness, my stubbornness, my need for control, my affinity for approval. 

The crushing, the self-denial, the sacrifice, the trampling—all of it transforms us to the likeness of Christ—if we allow God to shape us through it. 

In the crucible, there is change. The heat melts the dross. The refining leads to re-formation, a reconfiguration of our inner beings, a realignment of our hearts to His.

But friend, here’s the stunning part: we can trust Him through the trampling because He went through incomprehensibly worse.

He was crushed, bruised, beaten, defamed, denied, mocked, spat upon, and crucified. Like a rose, trampled on the ground, He took the fall…

Friend, by no means am I suggesting that you and I quietly endure or excuse abuse of any kind. Trusting God through the trial doesn’t by any means endorse wrongdoing.

Yet often it’s in laying down our rights that we honor God most.

But we can take heart because the trial is not the end of the story. The One who endured the cross is seated at the right hand of the Father. And one day, He will come back, and we will reign with Him.

Meanwhile, the call for us is to trust the One who sees and knows, who vindicates and gives victory.

It is to be trained through the trials in endurance, patience, and humility. 

It is to be transformed even through the trampling.

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