Consider it PURE JOY

Have you had to preserver under trial?  Has life changed course or gone a way you hadn’t planned? Have you had to bury a parent or child long before expected?  Maybe you lost a job or moved away from loved ones. Perhaps tragic illness has struck your home, and you are now navigating life as a caregiver.

In my younger years, I thought life would get easier with age.  I figured that with age came wisdom, and wisdom meant life would move more smoothly. The older I get though, I see I may be wiser but life is definitely not easier.

The past four years have probably been the roughest I have experienced.  The word, persevere, aptly describes what I have done.  James chapter 1:12 says,“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”  

I have refused to give up.  I even had a scripture verse tattooed to my foot, reminding me that God’s word will guide me. In my time of trial and perseverance, I have found a sweetness in surrendering to God’s will and his plan.  It may not have been my plan.  My life right now looks totally different than what I envisioned as a child, but there is JOY.

I am learning to trust God with my future.  It is in that place of trust where the first words in James 1 have finally become clear. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Whether the trial is God ordained or God allowed, we are to trust him.  When we trust him with the trial, he will work in us; refining us as he gets us to the other side of it.  And it is in that sweet release of trust that we find joy in the trial, because if God is for us, who can be against us? 

I would encourage you to read today's passage.  Read it a couple times if you can and ask God to show you how to see the joy in the trial when we finally trust him.  James 1:2-15