During my childhood and growing up in our house, there were three core values which defined us: faith, family, and sports. Whether it was playing, watching, or conversing about them, sports were always near the forefront of our attention. Both my brother and I played multiple different sports, and so found our time regularly taken up by either practice or games, doing our best to improve our performance and grow as athletes.

Anything you put that much of your energy into eventually begins to shape who you are as a person and what you value; there is a certain amount of your worth that gets tied to the quality of your performance. Naturally, that meant losing a game was something that could take a serious shot at my pride. Being that I am the kind of person that you might say wears my heart on my sleeve (or at least on my face), my dad would regularly see me looking upset and offer the same simple phrase each time: “That one was a character-builder, Jake.”

Simple words, yet profound. I am sure there was some temptation in my dad’s heart, seeing his upset son, to offer a more classically uplifting encouragement to help sweep the hurt under the mat, but I’m glad he didn’t. I lost and it hurt—I knew it, he knew it, and it was no help to pretend like it didn’t happen. There was no platitude provided, or excuses made. What was given was an opportunity to change my perspective and realize that there was worth beyond winning or losing; true growth came from the impact the experience had on who I was.

My concern is that, as much as that makes sense as you read it, we as Christians do not often tend towards this type of perspective when it comes to the greater strife and sufferings of life. We pray for sickness to be healed, poverty to be alleviated, relationships to be restored. Now please hear me, those things are not wrong. We are actually encouraged in Scripture to present our requests to the Lord (Philippians 4:6)—continue praying! However, when our relationship to the challenges of life is reduced to avoidance, we miss out on their sanctifying potential.

When the wins or worldly blessings become our litmus test for success, Christ reminds us of our ultimate prize in John 17:3 (ESV): “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God Himself ought to be our chief joy, and that means that even the circumstances we rightly ask Him to change can become opportunities to depend on, lean on, and trust in Him more. The goal is not to learn to love suffering for its own sake, but to recognize that God is able to use suffering to form us into people who know and love Him more deeply.

Might I encourage you to consider that as you go about this next week? Take note of those character-builder moments in your life and offer them up to the Lord, praying that, regardless of the results, your Father might use them to help you know Him and resemble His Son better.