FAITH TESTING

James 1:2-4 (NIV) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

This set of verses used to confuse me. Consider it ‘pure joy’?? Joy in the face of trials?? It’s true enough when the scripture says ‘whenever you face trials of many kinds’ and not ‘if’, because you WILL most definitely face a variety of trials and tribulations in this lifetime.

PERSEVERANCE (def) - Steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness.

Did you know that the trials that you go through are pre-ordained and orchestrated by God? Now to be fair, there are some trials that we bring on ourselves as a direct consequence of our actions and while God may not have orchestrated that, He allows it as a means to an end. You’ve perhaps heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason”. I ascribe to that theory and would even tack on this addendum: “everything happens for a reason in God’s economy”.

What do I mean by that?

To me, ‘God’s economy’ means everything that falls under His control, which is literally everything. So all the things that happen to you on any given day are no surprise to your Heavenly Father. He knows your every thought, your desires, your deepest, most intimate secrets. He knows what you need, even down to what you need to grow spiritually. This is of paramount importance to God.
A small body of water, without a source to feed fresh water into it on a continuing basis, will become stagnant. So will ANY of us if we do not receive a steady stream of ‘water’ from God.

We have many lessons to learn as a Christian. We learn them through sermons, through reading scripture, through praying, through fellowship, through wise counsel and we learn important lessons from trials. There is a key factor in the learning process: we must, over time, learn to ask ‘what would You like me to learn from this, Lord’, rather than ‘why me?’ or ‘not this again’. It takes time to get to that place. Don’t be too hard on yourself, because it doesn’t come easy. Our natural inclination is to say ‘oh no, not again’ when something seems to go wrong. Just 1-1/2 years ago, when I was laid off from my job, the first words to the HR director with tears in my eyes were, ‘oh no … what am I gonna do now?’ It was through tear filled eyes on my way home in a driving rain storm that I uttered the words ‘Lord, I am trusting You to see me through this. Teach me what You want me to know from this and let me learn my lessons well.’

Now I am no spiritual giant, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I want you to know that God not only saw us through a 13 month stint of unemployment and some difficult financial times, but taught me many, many things about Himself and myself. I am a better man today because of the trials I have gone through. But I had to submit to His will and trust Him to provide and sustain not only me, but the one God gave me a responsibility to care for; my lovely wife.

So when you face a trial and it seems that the only thing you can do is to go through it, then strap yourself to the mast of the Master’s ship and ride it out. He will provide for you and sustain you and if you are attentive to His voice, will teach you marvelous things that you would never have known if you had stayed on dry land. Don’t be afraid of your trials, embrace them as learning tools and you will come out shining like the sun. Remember; exercise your faith and trust.

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!!