Counting all difficulties as joy

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trails of various kinds . . ." (James 1:2).

Have you ever met a person who actually, literally did what this verse says? I have. Marilyn (not her real name) phoned and told me that her husband has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, her son is recovering from multiple stab wounds inflicted by a crazed stranger in Center City, and her daughter-in-law is so weakened by some bizarre condition that she is unable to hold her newborn. And she was radiating joy.

Marilyn figured that God must be really up to something! He must be really shaking things up for a good purpose for all this to be coming down at once. This, she reasoned, must be nothing other than the "testing of faith" of verse 3 that issues in a new level of "steadfastness," whose "full effect" makes "perfect and complete" (verse 4). Marilyn wants that "perfect and complete" thing, for herself and for her family. She wants it more than she wants their or her health.

It's like the old joke about the optimistic kid who gets a pile of manure for Christmas and excitedly concludes that there must be a pony hiding in there somewhere. And indeed, Ray Stedman in his book Authentic Christianity cited first in his list of the marks of the authentic believer: "unquenchable optimism."

I know that Marilyn's counting all of her inherently difficult circumstances as joy is accompanied by a fair amount of muscular thinking and believing. Her logic seems to be this: God is love; He sends trial to build faith; He will reward tenacious faith with something wonderful that no eye can see nor ear can hear nor the heart of man can conceive. Immediately, that understanding of Marilyn's yields a quiet hope and a joy. It turns out that God really does keep at perfect peace the heart that is steadfast, because it trusts in Him (Isaiah 26:3). Who'd have thought it?

Marilyn understands something of the mechanics of God's trial boot camp because she has been through it before. God has a track record in her life. She is familiar with the dynamic of trials putting pressure on a person to force the issue of whom or what she is going to trust. The trial may be so severe that one must resort hourly to recommit to trusting God with it. A robust prayer life develops. The practice of praise is engendered. Marilyn is in the midst of this process, and she feels like she can taste the final outcome already.

May you have Marilyns in your life too.

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