In our previous installment of Joy–The Battle Worth Waging, we saw that joy is something we set our minds to (“consider it”), and it comes through the matrix of trials. Ultimately, trials are an inevitability of what it means to live in a broken world made up of broken people. But God, in His wisdom allows trials to be the filter through which He cultivates joy in the life of His followers. Not merely for the sake of the struggle, but instead what the struggle produces.
Consider for a moment your own life. Consider the trials and struggles you have endured. Certainly, there are elements of the struggle(s) that you would eliminate, but can you nevertheless agree that it was through struggles that something good was produced in you or in those around you? Maybe you’ve said, “I’m glad I went through that, because it produced _____, but I sure wouldn’t want to endure it again.”? There are many things in my life I wouldn’t want to endure again, but I can say that those things certainly changed me–for the better.
And so, after James instructs followers of Christ to consider their struggles with joy, he then goes on to help us understand why they should do just that…
“…knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”
James 1:3
In so many words, James reveals that the trials are a testing ground of faith. It is where the rubber meets the road. Life–for the Christian–is not about the milk toast, but instead about the struggles that test one’s faith for the production of something. That something that is produced–James says–is endurance.
The word endurance means literally to bear under. In other words, “the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty” (BDAG, 1039). What James is instructing the follower of Christ is that the reason you should consider your various trials with joy is because the trials produce the ability to bear up in difficulties. In other words, it is through the trial that the strength is given to remain faithful.
How Does This Apply To Us Today?
- It is through the trial(s) that God grows the faith of His followers–the stick-to-it-ness of His people.
- Jesus endured to give us grace to endure. This grace is His free gift extended to a broken humanity to be received by us in faith. In other words, a follower of Christ is one who looks to Christ in the midst of his trials as the answer to their questions of “why me, why us, why now, etc.“. Christ’s endurance is not only an example to follow, but the means of grace through which to lay hold of and believe it is available to His followers even today. “The grace of God has appeared…” Titus 2:11.