With tears, I’ve watched the video countless times. England, 2016: A bar loaded to half a ton—five hundred kilograms, more than any man in recorded history had ever lifted from the ground. Eddie Hall steps up with resolve. He chalks his hands, sets his feet, and pulls what looks like the weight of the world.
His legs drive. His back locks. Veins rise on his neck like cords pulled tight. For a moment, the entire room seems to hold its breath. Hall bears the load. Blood streams from his nose. The judge gives the signal—he’s completed the lift. But what makes the moment unforgettable is not just that he lifts it, but that he holds it. He doesn’t drop the weight. He remains under it—1,102 pounds suspended in his hands. With an intense gaze, Hall scans the room, as if to lock eyes with every person watching. Then, having mastered the weight, he slams it to the ground. In that moment, I understood what James, the brother of Jesus, meant by steadfastness. Hall’s lift gives flesh and bone to the word hupomonē—the Greek term for to remain under, to not abandon the weight. Steadfastness is not pretending the trial is easy. It is accepting the weight and, with resolve, bearing it—enduring until the work is done.
James, the servant of God, is by no means asking us to stand on a platform and lift half a ton but he is calling us to something just as demanding: “Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing… Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:4, 12, ESV).
This is the exhortation: remain under it. Bear the weight with joy until it finishes its work in you—producing wholeness, maturity. If this is James’s exhortation, then trials are not interruptions to the Christian life. They are the means by which we reach our goal: glorification.
Much of our lives are spent avoiding discomfort. We avoid difficult conversations. We chase financial security. We prioritize predictability. We escape into entertainment. None of these things are sinful in themselves. Wisdom plans. Scripture commends diligence. God gives good gifts of rest and enjoyment. But beneath many of these desires lies a deeper assumption: The good life is the comfortable life. Every burger, beer, and car commercial has taught us as much. But what if the discomfort we’ve avoided—the very trial we’ve begged God to remove—is the instrument our loving Father is using to bring us to completion, the place where lasting joy is found?
When James says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” he is not asking us to enjoy pain for pain’s sake. He is asking us to value what God produces through pain. “…that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2, 4).
Trials are not joyful because they are easy, but because they are purposeful. The weight of hardship is not arbitrary. It is not random. Nor is it evidence that God dislikes us. God, in his love, uses what we would remove to produce what we could never achieve on our own: maturity, wholeness, and conformity to Christ.
This is a lesson I am still learning. In financial uncertainty, health struggles, family difficulties, seminary responsibilities, and ministry, I often find myself afraid that the weight of hardship will be too much—that it will crush me and those I love.
However, Scripture paints God as a loving Father. He does not give us trials to ruin us, but to renew us. Trials expose our sin, reveal the false satisfaction we find in lesser things, and prove the genuineness of our faith. What kind of father would refuse to challenge his children? A good father does not remove every difficulty from his child’s life; he prepares his child to face what lies ahead. He knows that comfort alone cannot produce maturity. In the same way, our heavenly Father lovingly uses trials to form us into the people he has called us to become. And because our Father is not merely concerned with our comfort but with our completion, God promises that those who remain steadfast under trial will receive the crown of life.
Beloved, the promise is for those who endure hardship, not those who avoid it. The promise is that the trials have an expiration date but the Crown of Life is eternal. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Our elder brother Jesus left us an example. The writer of Hebrews tells us that “although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). For the joy set before him, the Lord Jesus endured the cross. Jesus endured the suffering and shame of Calvary because he trusted the Father. He knew the cross was not an interruption to the Father’s will for his life; it was the very means through which redemption was accomplished.
And if the Father could accomplish the salvation of his people through the suffering of his beloved Son, then we can trust him with the trials he allows in our own lives. The weight we carry is not evidence that God has abandoned us. It is evidence that he is at work—forming us, completing us, and preparing us for the day when we will stand before him lacking nothing.
So remain steadfast. Do not abandon the weight. Trust the hands that placed it there. The Father who calls you to endure is the Father who promises to carry you home.
