Heart to Heart from the Housewrights
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing…God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:2-4; 12 - NLT)
We are all apt to do it. As a matter of fact perhaps you’ve already done it today.
Compare your problems to someone else’s.
You know what we mean. It goes something like this:
Friend: You won’t believe what happened to me today!
Us: Yeah, well, wait to you hear about my day!
And on and on it goes…
Yet, for followers of Jesus, troubles are not something to complain about. Something to whine about. Something to moan about. Something to compare.
Troubles are an opportunity…for great joy.
What an odd and strange irony…
Like the above scripture from James, Paul the apostle wrote: “In all things give thanks - for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you,” (I Thessalonians 5:18).
Really, Paul? Nice words. Challenging even. But, how do we put them into practice? You know, move from theoretical and hypothetical to practical. Can we actually give thanks in times of testing?
Well, James - the half brother of Jesus - puts it this way: tests of faith during times of great temptation and struggle lead to greater amounts of endurance. The stronger our endurance - the more we can deal with. In his words, we will be complete and need nothing.
Testing leads us to wholeness. How? When our faith in Christ Jesus brings us through moments of frustration, doubt and discouragement, our faith grows - and there is nothing we need more in this world than a strong faith which will stand the tests of life.
It’s what we need and others are watching.
The problem is this - we don’t like testing. We don’t want it and we surely don’t pray for it! With everything we have within us we fight against having to go the difficult way.
And that leads to a weak, insipid, fraudulent faith.
It brings about the kind of faith that waves its arms in ecstasy on Sunday with shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “swinging from the chandeliers” while smoke covers the stage and a band plays the same verse over and over again…and Monday through Saturday we find ourselves complaining about and comparing our troubles to everyone else.
Jesus said, “You will have troubles in this world. But, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Why, then, do we try to run and hide from difficult moments?
It’s because we want to be entertained. We want to escape reality. We do not want to read God’s holy word and have it smack us in the face - smack us back into reality. God’s word challenges, corrects, penetrates and redirects.
And we hate all of those things.
Oswald Chambers assesses the situation this way in his book, Still Higher for His Highest, He states: “...consequently people won’t face the rugged facts of the Gospel because when the Holy Spirit comes in He challenges a person’s will, demands a reconstruction of their whole life, and produces a change of mind which will work havoc in their former complacency,” (January 18th entry).
Challenge. Demand. Reconstruct. Change. Havoc. Complacency.
Good words. True words.
So, what are you NOT dealing with today? Why are you NOT dealing with it?
After all, “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
Peace and Joy be yours…in spite of your circumstances,
Missy and Steve
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