My wife has been hospitalized twice recently with a respiratory infection that makes it hard for her to breathe. How glad I was this week when she reported how much better she was feeling! She could breathe again. She could have taken a verse from this psalm and made it her own: “[W]e went through fire and through water, yet you [God] have brought us out to a spacious place.” A spacious place is a place where we can breathe.

There’s a difference, however, between my wife’s recent ordeal and the struggles alluded to in this psalm. The writer believes that God is testing the people; that God is behind their struggles. Some of us today might cringe to read this.

Though we might not believe that God sends us trouble, we can still view ordeals we endure as tests. How we face challenges—whether the nightly frustrations of washing dishes or more serious issues like illness or job loss—helps us to discover the truth of our character. Can we face challenges with patience and hope, or do we approach them with anger and insolence? How I face adversity can reveal or obscure my truth as a child of God.

As a seminary professor, I give students exams to test their learning. But the rest of their lives in ministry will also be a test—though not given by a professor or by God—to help them see whether they are living and loving in accordance with the truth of their deepest identity.

However we view the trying circumstances of our lives, one thing is certain: God walks with us through the fire and the water and longs to bring us to a place where we can breathe once again.