Back to School: Every step you take is making you stronger

August 24, 2025

Can we all agree we are going to go through tough times? Tomorrow is back to school. My first time going to school. It was not back to school. I didn’t go to preschool. My first day of kindergarten was me going to school for the very first time.

I cried! I did not want to go! The principal had to block the door of my classroom so I couldn’t leave! It was rough! If you’re going back to school, you already made it through that very first day of school. You got this!

We all will go through tough days. Maybe even today, maybe it was hard for you to wake up, and you didn’t have time to eat. Or you spilled milk on your shirt and had to change! It could be you’re thinking about tomorrow and worried about school. Perhaps you’re afraid your teacher will be tough. Or you’re upset because back to school means math homework and math gives you a headache. Or your best friend moved to Florida and you’re afraid you won’t have any good friends. Or someone in your family is sick and you’re worried about them. It’s not a matter of if you will go through difficult times. It’s something that is going to happen.

But what would you say if I told you to think of those hard times that you’re going through as joy, like to consider them pure joy? That doesn’t really seem like the best advice. You might think I sound like a crazy person. And if you were to tell me that in the hardest times of my life that I should consider my suffering a joy, I would think you were out of your mind. And I would also be kind of mad at you too because how could I consider any of that as joy?

In our Scripture today from James 1:2-4, that is the advice that James gives to encourage Christians who are suffering! James writes in 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. So let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” It sounds crazy, but what if he’s onto something? The Christians in the church that James wrote to kept this letter he wrote to them. They thought his words were really helpful, or else they would have burnt his letter in their fire! They must have thought, James is right, there is something good about suffering!

I didn’t like those words: consider it pure joy whenever you face trials! I didn’t like it at all, until I came to realize that his words are true. Until I saw God do something through suffering. And today we’ll learn how to respond when trials come, because we see that God can use our trials to bring good and to bring glory to Him! Every step you take is making you stronger!

Can you try trusting God, when trials come? Telling yourself, “I don’t know what’s going on, but God can do something good through this.” When I was in high school in biology class, my teacher said, “If you want to get an A in this class, you have to do a project for the science fair. Nobody has to do a project. But if you don’t, you won’t get a grade higher than a B.” I liked getting good grades, so I made a proposal for my science project. I had a couple pet hermit crabs. I decided my project would be on whether or not hermit crabs can see in color. I gave the proposal to my teacher. I was shocked when I got it back. She gave me a D+! She told me it was bad. I was disappointed! I decided, I guess I just won’t do a science project. I must not be good at science. I’ll settle for a B for the class. That D+ grade on my proposal did not bring me joy!

My brother, Joe, heard about this, and he told me, “No, you can do it!” He was older than me, and he had this same teacher before, and she loved him! He was very encouraging! So, I changed my mind, I’ll give it a try! Boy, was I surprised when I did my project, it was in the school science fair, and I got an outstanding! So, I moved on to the district, and I got an outstanding in the district science fair! I went to the state science fair. I ended up doing the best of anyone in my grade, and there were 400+ students in my grade! I did great with a proposal that got a D+! That doesn’t seem possible on my own. I think God had something to do with it. I learned that every step you take is making you stronger. I was disappointed that my teacher didn’t like my proposal, but I stepped out in faith, and God came through big time! My faith grew stronger!

I learned, sometimes you’ve just got to persevere. You have to keep showing up, even when you get a D+; you don’t know what will happen. You won’t get anywhere if you give up. It’s easy to tell ourselves, “I’m no good.” But you know who thinks you’re great? God does! God believes in you! There are lots of people who love you and who believe in you! Listen to their encouragement. Listen to James words: when something seems hard, consider it pure joy! Who knows? You might fail, but you might succeed. Whatever happens you’ll learn and grow as you step out in faith!

It’s easy when things are hard to hyperfocus on how difficult it is, to say, “This is going to be hard!” But James offers a different perspective, to consider it pure joy! That doesn’t mean you have to smile and act happy about your pain. It’s just that because we know Jesus, we have hope. Hope that God can bring good from our struggles. Hope that there will be healing, you’ll experience peace, and joy, and your faith in God will grow!

Last week we went on vacation to Erie, Pennsylvania. The last day of vacation, the “check engine” light came on in our car. We knew that meant something was wrong and the car needed to be check out. I felt upset: we wanted to travel home the next day. We had things to do we needed to be back home for, and appointments to keep! Where could we get the car fixed? We had worries because it’s an older car, is this the end of the line for it? How would we get home?

I thought about what to do. It was 4:30 pm on Wednesday. I thought I could call the Hyundai dealer in Erie and see if they could help.

I called, the service department, who told me, we could drop our car off with them tomorrow. But they couldn’t guarantee they would get to it. And they couldn’t guarantee they could fix tomorrow it if they did get to it. I said OK.

That evening, I prayed things would work out. But I tried not to think about the worst-case scenario. I counted my blessings. Many worse things could have happened!

I was still worried, but there was a plan. Next day, we checked out of the hotel and took our car to the service dept. at 7 am. We were living on faith we’d be driving home. They got to our car within an hour. They fixed it. By 9 am we were on our way!

I was praising God and so happy we could drive home! Sometimes on a trip you get tired. Did you ever ask, “How many more miles?” I was not doing that. Instead, I was so grateful God was good to us! That’s a benefit of hard times. When God works, eases our pains and helps us get through, we appreciate God more! We trust God more! We’re fully aware of God’s goodness!

Here’s my challenge for you this week: when school or something else in your life seems difficult, pray: “God, I have hope, because you are good!” Trust God can work things out.

God is so good that He can, and He will use hard times that we go through for our good and for His glory. We can be confident that every step we take toward God is making us stronger in faith and hope. Amen.