Everyone wants to be strong, no one wants to lift heavy things.

Feb.22

Read: James 1:1-4

Everyone wants to be strong, no one wants to lift heavy things.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (v.2-4)

“Breaking through”… moving forward… growing… transformation… whatever you want to call it; all of these things come about when we face difficulty and adversity. There is no shortcut. There is no way around it. We see this cosmic truth from God re-told all around us. It is written about in *Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” and we see it played out again in film and theatre where every hero passes through a trial or difficulty… some moment of suffering. There are maxims and sayings that make their way onto inspirational posters or meme’s on the internet; things like “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” I just read a recent book called “The Comfort Crisis” about how humanity’s excessive comfort and lack of adversity is negatively affecting our physical and mental health. The truth of the scriptures… of James 1:2-4 has hopped out of the scriptures and into full view of the world around us.

This is why Paul writes to the church in Rome and says this:

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

Paul is wiring the same thing as James has written. Character is forged in the crucible of adversity. We must go “down” before we can be brought up. Jesus highlights this idea in his “last will be first, and first will be last” teachings. (ie. Matt 19:30, 20:16, Mark 10:31, Luke 13:30) Jesus says it again in another way… basically through the image of laying down our lives; “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matt 10:39 etc.) Hebrews 2:10 even says that Jesus’ suffering was a part of what made him perfect!- “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

Over and over again, this same idea comes to the surface. And this is why we “count it pure joy when we face trials and tribulations of every type”. We are being made into the steadfast, enduring, high-character, hopeful people of the Kingdom of God. We would never choose this path for ourselves. We will never pick for ourselves the sort of “testing” that we truly need… like someone in the gym who only does “what they feel like”. This is why people pay $100’s of dollars to have someone tell them what to do in a gym for instance… it is not really a matter of  “knowledge” (anyone can look up a million different CrossFit workouts and lifts) it is the reality that we will not choose for ourselves the sort of difficult trials that produce actual steadfastness.

ALL OF US will face trials, tribulation, suffering, and or difficulty in this world. Everyone will have their turn. The real question is how will we respond. The word of God and the Spirit of God have given us wisdom, direction, and truth. We can face these trials knowing the GOOD WORK that will come from them. Each and every one of these difficulties is an opportunity to use your faith… to exercise your faith… so that it is STRONG and ROBUST. The people of God are not those who are easily broken. Count it pure joy brothers and sisters. See these tough moments as GIFTS from God. Watch as they create a “steadfast” version of you rooted in Christ Jesus! Love you guys. - JDP