Trust in God during your trials

All that goes on in this life is to test our trust in God, and cause us to trust in God if we are a believer.

What especially will do that? Trials, afflictions, sorrows, persecutions. It is in the midst of these that our faith is challenged.

Our normal human response would be something like this:
"Why am I going through this? Has God forsaken me? Am I in the midst of terrible sin?"

The apostle Paul reveals that we ought to understand our sufferings in a very different way when he writes:
2 Corinthians 1:8 For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: 9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: 10 Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;

The point of Paul's suffering was not that God had forsaken him or that he was being punished for sin, but so that he would trust in God and not in himself.

This is also what he means by these verses later in the same epistle:
2 Corinthians 12:7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

In his weakness, not trusting in himself, he found strength in grace, the power of Christ, that comes by trusting in God through Jesus Christ. So, once again, Paul's suffering was not due to God's forsaking of him or a punishment of sin, but a demonstration of the benefits of trusting in God through Jesus Christ.

The next time you are called to suffer, do not take it as a sign of God's departure from you, or that God is punishing you for your sins. If you believe, your sins were punished on the cross. God's purpose in this suffering is that you would learn to trust in Him even more than you do now or did before the suffering came.