“More meekness in trial,” (“More Holiness Give Me”, Phillip Paul Bliss). In a scientific experiment, or trial, it is very important to control all but one of the variables - the variable that you actually want to test. By keeping nearly all of the conditions exactly the same across trials, you can introduce specific changes to one of the variables and have confidence that from one trial to the next, there is no unaccounted influence from outside factors. Our Heavenly Father has carefully designed trials for us to test and develop specific qualities in us. In order for these trials to be successful, we have to work with the Lord in controlling any extraneous factors that could foul up the results of the trial. When we meekly submit to the conditions of the trial and strive with all of our might to not allow our pride or fear or ego or doubts or selfishness or impatience cause unaccounted influence on the design of the trial, then we can experience the pure joy of discovery as the trial runs its intended course. Too often we stunt our spiritual growth because we panic and pull the plug on a trial before the final results have been tabulated. Naaman, a great captain of the most powerful military on Earth at the time, almost ruined a trial that he had been subjected to. After suffering from leprosy and trying everything and going to some backwater hamlet in the middle of nowhere to be told to go bathe in some dirty river and having gone to the very edge of the water itself, he almost called it quits. But he had the meekness to see the crazy trial through to the bitter end and he finally was healed. It takes a certain kind of humility to be involved in a double blind trial when you don't know what the trial is for and how long it's running for or what it is that is even being tested, and it takes even more control to stick with it when the indignities and delays and the devastating setbacks start to pile up, but those who are meek enough to endure the trial until the final data point has been collected have the promise that the meek shall inherit the earth. I know that the Lord does not put us through trials for no reason, and He certainly doesn't do it for bad reasons either. For all of us who will meekly submit to the parameters of His trials, we have this assurance that we will be cleansed and purified and sanctified, and proven worthy of even more rigorous trials, with even more glorious rewards.
