「在信的人凡事都能。」－馬可福音9:23
在操練過信心的生活時，我們需要經過種種的歷程：信心的試煉、信心的規範、信心的忍耐、信心的勇氣；當這些都走過了，我們才能來到信心的終點站：信心的得勝。
聖經中許多的人物，並不是生來就是偉大的，他們都經過了神製作的過程。
亞伯拉罕、摩西、以利亞，都是經過了信心的訓練，才合格承託神給他們的工作。
在約瑟的身上，我們能看見一條神訓練他登上埃及寶座的軌跡。
《詩篇》105篇19節說：「耶和華的話試煉他。」因此，試煉他的，不是監牢裡的硬床或粗食，乃是他年少時，神向他的心所說過的話，那些關於榮耀與高升，甚至遠過於他哥哥的話語。
這些話常在他的面前，儘管他在牢中一天又一天無望的生活，似乎讓他日漸遠離那些話語的實現。即使清白無罪，他仍被下在監裡；而那些該受刑的，反倒得著釋放。
獄中的經歷熬煉了約瑟的心靈，卻也使他生命快速成熟。於是當他獲釋之後，在面對曾令他下監的哥哥們時，他能夠巧妙的面對他們，並以神的愛和忍耐，慈憐的對待他們。
如此的熬煉比所有的逼迫更為難受。因為神已顯明了祂的心意，卻久久不使之實現。
但這就是信心所必須經過的訓練，除此之外，我們無法被帶進對神更深的認識裡。
"All things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23).The "all things" do not always come simply for the asking, for the reason that God is ever seeking to teach us the way of faith, and in our training in the faith life there must be room for the trial of faith, the discipline of faith, the patience of faith, the courage of faith, and often many stages are passed before we really realize what is the end of faith, namely, the victory of faith.
Real moral fibre is developed through discipline of faith. You have made your request of God, but the answer does not come. What are you to do?
Keep on believing God's Word; never be moved away from it by what you see or feel, and thus as you stand steady, enlarged power and experience is being developed. The fact of looking at the apparent contradiction as to God's Word and being unmoved from your position of faith make you stronger on every other line.
Often God delays purposely, and the delay is just as much an answer to your prayer as is the fulfillment when it comes.
In the lives of all the great Bible characters, God worked thus. Abraham, Moses and Elijah were not great in the beginning, but were made great through the discipline of their faith, and only thus were they fitted for the positions to which God had called them.
For example, in the case of Joseph whom the Lord was training for the throne of Egypt, we read in the Psalms:
"The word of the Lord tried him." It was not the prison life with its hard beds or poor food that tried him, but it was the word God had spoken into his heart in the early years concerning elevation and honor which were greater than his brethren were to receive; it was this which was ever before him, when every step in his career made it seem more and more impossible of fulfillment, until he was there imprisoned, and all in innocency, while others who were perhaps justly incarcerated, were released, and he was left to languish alone.
These were hours that tried his soul, but hours of spiritual growth and development, that, "when his word came" the word of release., found him fitted for the delicate task of dealing with his wayward brethren, with a love and patience only surpassed by God Himself.
No amount of persecution tries like such experiences as these. When God has spoken of His purpose to do, and yet the days go on and He does not do it, that is truly hard; but it is a discipline of faith that will bring us into a knowledge of God which would otherwise be impossible.
