This joy makes the believer an essentially happy person and even those who are pessimists by nature gain a new optimism which gradually transforms them. They should not hang on to unhappiness, even though there may be a deep appreciation of the misery in the world and a sympathy for those who are perishing. They may have deep sensitivities which make them feel keenly the sadness that is in the world and empathise with its sorrow, but they have personally been taken out of the realm of destruction and transformed in the realm of light, and they must not cling to sorrow. The future is bright for the believer and sadness is banished from heaven. They cannot go there without letting go of it all. Christ rejoices to have returned to heaven, even though he feels pity for his people in their sufferings in the world, and for the lost in their foolish unbelief.
Life’s experiences are chosen and dealt out to us according to the Lord’s awareness of what each one needs, to train us in patience and to put to death our sins and to strengthen our graces. There is no training program to rival it for its individual suitability and effectiveness. God uses even the temptations of the devil to train us, showing us our weaknesses and exposing our own hearts to us, so that we develop a greater sense of unworthiness. We are made to spar with him using the weapons that the Lord has provided to us and learning to handle them with skill. These trials are not intended to last for ever. God does not send them to make us unhappy but to further increase our happiness by nurturing graces in us which shall be ours forever. On earth we are still growing and this time is immensely profitable to us in a way that is not possible in heaven. It is a unique period of training and growth that will no longer be available when all evil will have been crushed and when faith will no longer be necessary in the same way because faith will have turned into sight.
Calvin comments that because believers know that these unpleasant things work for their good, they are able to face trials with an entirely different attitude to that of the world. The world sees only loss and disadvantage in suffering and hardship, but the believer sees profit in all and is therefore able to patiently bear with these things, because by faith he is convinced that God will transform evil events into a source of good and make them to become our instructors for our good. The children of God willingly undergo hardship and even welcome it because of the good that it works for them.