"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." James 1:2-3 (NASB)
The Passage
A couple of interesting little insights about this passage:
1) Consider - This word has two primary meanings. One is to lead, rule or dominate. The second is to consider, reckon, account or credit. Obviously the second is the meaning that is meant here. But the two are not totally unrelated are they? Both suggest a level of authority. This is one of those "impossible verses." We must be resting in Christ, but the fact that this is given to us as a command in scripture tells us that it is within the power of the believer who is resting in Christ to view his or her trials, difficulties, failures, annoyances and problems as joy.
2)All joy - Other teachers have brought this "all joy" as "perfect joy" or even "ultimate joy." Ultimate joys in our lives may be a wedding, the birth of a child, a graduation, the day we got a job we wanted, or got a raise because of how our performance was noticed. But none of these things are being discussed - trials are.
3)Trials of Many Kinds - Many here is the Greek word that we get the word polka dots from. Polka dots are a bunch of dots of various sizes. Big dots, little dots, medium dots and everything in between. Great stuff. These are the trials that James is talking about about here. The little trial when you stub your toe or your car doesn't start the first time, and the big trial when you lose a job, have a major health problem, or lose a loved one. All of those trials (shockingly) are reasons for pure joy.
Application
It would be a misapplication of this verse to say that you cannot be joyful and morn. You cannot be joyful and weep. That is confusing "joy" with happiness. True joy, God's joy, goes far deeper than circumstance and far deeper than emotion. It is rooted in neither of those things. So you are not violating the spirit of this verse when you mourn your loss at a funeral, when you are sad to lose a job you love, or when things don't go your way. What this is talking about is that we are never left to the complete darkness of it. When we step back from those emotions and the pain we are able to rejoice on the deeper level of knowing that we are being moved closer to our Lord, being cradled and held by our Savior, being watched over and conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
Appropriation
Believe it or not I got a chance to see this one very much not in action tonight...by me! Our two kids are in the same room now. Cadence is on about a two week cycle of "I stay in bed and go to sleep when I'm put to bed" and then two weeks of "I get out of bed like my electric blanket is plugged into the toaster!" You can imagine this is frustrating. But Finn is also having trouble accepting the loving hand of Sleep when she comes to caress him with the sweet oblivion of careless infant rest. Thus, once he's down we get agitated by anything that may wake him...like a klutzy two year old plowing jumping off her bed and plowing across the room to swing the door open and run down the stairs for no reason whatsoever.
This all came to something of a head this evening when Cadence had been up 3 times and woke Finn on the 4th. Tempers were lost, punishments were given. I rocked Finn; April rocked Finn. Cadence got up again. Nobody slept. Tempers were lost. It is hard in retrospect not to see the humor in the situation. Two children, one of whom feels it is her personal mission to do ninja flips out of her bed each night and see if she can set a personal record for how many times she can be out of bed before absolute exhaustion takes her and causes her to drink her portion of calm and surrender to the demands of sleep. And another child of less than a year whom the God who created the universe also happened to install a secret button on the back of his head that causes his eyes to fly open whenever he is placed on his back to sleep. It is clear that the Lord and I will have a good laugh about this when I get to see Him face to face (sooner than later if the kids keep this up), yet my lack of perspective will not be the good part of the joke.
My prayer is to be able to hold the children, discipline as is necessary and glorifies the Lord, and dance through these trials that will only be remembered with fondness. I'm sure there will be a time when rocking my troubled children to sleep is far more complicated than simply holding them, swaying, and humming softly. I know I will wish for the time when hurts could be kissed away and hurt feelings can be mended by a nickel bag of gummy treats. But how can I hope to rest in Christ and consider those upcoming trials pure joy, if I can't consider these trials pure joy?
