Nothing but Joy

 

“My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything.”

James 1:2-4, NET

            Joy does not come from hardships but their conquest. If we wait until everything is just as it should be before happiness finds a way into our lives, then we will never experience it. Life will not, dare I say cannot, be as it should. Trouble, strife, temptation and pure happenstance will deny us all but brief moments if we expect to be given our due. Since trials overwhelm us at nearly every turn, how ought we to respond? James tells us to choose joy—not joy that revels in hardship but joy that delights in being perfected by what we experience. It is not about the good times but the good character and person that I become because of what I have endured. I can either allow my pain to overwhelm me, immobilize me even embitter me or I can rise to become a better person because of what I experience. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). The Christian response to evil has always been goodness—to turn the other cheek, to go a second mile and to give when others take (Matthew 5:38-48). Christ calls us to a standard that differs in kind not just degree. “For God so loved the world that he gave what is most precious to him to save a hateful, vengeful and godless humanity…,” do we really fathom just how far this love goes? Paul puts it this way, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). What is God response to sin? It is nothing but love—real love not this modern dribble the world pawns off as the genuine article. It is Christ-nailed-to-the-cross kind of love. It is not about second chances but about revealing the true nature of our hearts.

            One of the more difficult statements to reconcile in Paul’s writings is this, “So then, God   has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden” Romans 9:18). Yet, examine the context. Two men did not wish to serve God—Moses did not wish to go but relented and Pharaoh hardened his heart until God could have broken him. One man chose faith and the other proclaimed himself a god. Both face adversity yet only one chooses faith. For James, this is our life in a nutshell. What will we do when hardship comes? The recent pictures from Moore, Oklahoma have been an awful reminder of what we faced in Homestead after Andrew. I cannot bear to look at them. Nevertheless, I have made a commitment to be a better man because of what I have experienced. I refuse to allow hardship to win for if it wins it will not simply prevail over me but over those I love, and that is simply unacceptable. Enduring produces a kind of fortitude which wells up from the inside. Faith produces endurance, and endurance perfects and completes me so I lack nothing.

            James chooses some colorful words in describing the work of endurance. Faith produces (works, makes a category of) endurance. Endurance is a word for kind of hyper staying put. The word perfect denotes an end—in this case an ending that is just as it should be. This ending is perfect, sound and whole where nothing is lacking or forsaken. For James joy is not in the journey but in the destination. Faith triumphs. In knowing this singular axiom, joy in the journey not only becomes possible but, as James argues, our response to all of the hurt in the world. Jesus did not delight in the cross but he delights in what his suffering did for his friends. Faith and endurance ends in a perfection whereby we become God-friends. I can think of nothing nobler than to become friends with the almighty. It brings nothing but joy.

Steve Davis