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“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.”  James 1:2-4  NIV

Sometimes it seems we are constantly going through trials, doesn’t it? When you’re a child, you are concerned with getting through the next test, enduring the stress of puberty, facing peer pressure, and making decisions about your future. Later in adulthood, you cope with disappointing relationships, financial problems, child rearing, deaths in the family…I could go on and on. I look back on my life, and it seems like one trial after another.

I’m not complaining. God has made His presence known to me more clearly in the trials than at any other time, and I have rejoiced during it all because He was with me in a very real way. If you’ve never experienced that kind of closeness to God, you have something wonderful and marvelous to look forward to.

Perseverance takes faith to hang in there, no matter what. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could crank up some extra faith with some magic formula? But we can’t do it under human power. It takes God’s hand to increase our faith, and He does it by seeing us through difficulty.

Right now, I am going into a new trial I never faced before. Ask me to go through certain kinds of trials, and I am an old hand. It gets easier to trust God for a victorious outcome when you’ve been through it before, have known His presence, and have seen Him at work. That’s how your faith grows. But this new one, for me, is frightening. I can see a long struggle ahead, and I’m already tired.

I was having trouble considering it pure joy, as James instructed us in verse 2. Then I read down to verse 12: “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

So it’s my job to persevere, and He has promised to give me the crown of life at the appropriate time. I can rejoice over that!

“Dear Father, thank you for your faithfulness in seeing us through difficult situations. We ask for divine strength in persevering through life’s trials so we can look forward to hearing You say, ‘Well done,’ when we finally see You face to face.”

For His Glory

Cherie Harbridge Williams (www.cherieharbridgewilliams.com)
TRBC Women’s Life