My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials.
Into the Text
Consider it pure joy. That’s a hard truth to swallow when you feel like your life is falling apart.
If we are honest, most of us read those words from James and think, “easier said than done.” Consider it joy when I face trials? When the diagnosis comes? When my marriage is struggling? When the finances fall apart? When the thing I prayed hardest for doesn’t happen?
James isn’t being dismissive of our pain. He isn’t telling us to pretend everything is fine or paste a smile over our heartbreak. He is pointing us toward something deeper, a joy that is forged not found. A joy that is produced through the very trials we would never choose for ourselves.
The testing of our faith, James tells us, produces perseverance. And perseverance, when it has finished its work, produces maturity, completeness, and wholeness that cannot be manufactured any other way. There are no shortcuts to becoming the woman God has called you to be.
Please know that God is not wasting your hard seasons. He is using them. They serve a greater purpose.
Every trial you walk through is an opportunity for your faith to be tested and strengthened. Every painful season is a classroom where God is developing something in you that could not be developed any other way. The woman who comes out on the other side of a hard season with her faith intact is a woman who has been refined and made stronger. That is not an accident. It is God intentionally, painstakingly working in your life.
This is why joy is possible in the middle of trials. It is not because the trial is good but because God is good. He is at work in the middle of it. When we trust this truth, joy becomes possible.
You are not forgotten in your trial. You are being formed. Keep going. Better days are ahead. That’s God’s promise.