Count it all joy
“I guess you made it to a James, chapter one part of your life,” I said to my friend after she shared about a trial recently. She had yet to experience a deep valley and was finding it difficult to remember the promises of God. I get it. Promises like God’s mercies are new every morning are harder to hold when we stare down a difficult health concern, a sick child, or a struggling marriage.
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 nothing.” James 1:2-4
I’m thankful James explains the purpose of trials. But joy? Really? We’re supposed to be happy about them?
Yes. James says count it all joy.
Trials are opportunities to focus on what matters. In her book Discipline, The Glad Surrender, Elisabeth Elliot talks about grabbing onto a ‘transformed vision of reality.’ Life is busy and often difficult, and if we aren’t looking intently to Christ, we will look to him less and to other things more. She encourages us to “think Christ” and let our minds be renewed. “It is nothing short of a transformed vision of reality that is able to see Christ as more real than the storm, love more real than hatred, meekness more real than pride, long-suffering more real than annoyance, holiness more real than sin.”
I don’t love trials, but I do love seeing God more real than the storm and holiness more real than my sin. When I stop a sinful thought pattern or pray for someone instead of thinking poorly of her, I count it joy, because I see growth. Many spiritual gains have come through the painful buffing of trials. The more I look to Jesus, the more I change. I live in a ‘transformed vision of reality,’ and it feels good. Fellowship with the Spirit is sweet. Elliot says “A renewed mind has an utterly changed conception, not only of reality, but of possibility.”
Our trials become joy because we get to know Jesus more, who “for the joy set before him, endured the cross.” (Hebrews 12:2) What was his joy? While there are several possibilities of what the writer of Hebrews means here, I think of Jesus’ joy of saving believers from eternal death by conquering it. He endured the most extreme trial, the offering of his life, for us. He loves and delights in us.
Growth happens in valleys. With tears streaming down our faces and not without tumult, we count our trials joy because they wash away the extras of life. We believe anew that being a disciple of Jesus supersedes everything else. It is the truest reality one can know. Our faith strengthens, we become steadfast, and we step more into who God designed us to be. If a trial helps me to look more like Christ, then yes, I can count it joy. A costly joy. The best kind there is.
*Written originally for Chatham Bible Church’s Womens newsletter in November, 2022
*Discipline, The Glad Surrender, Elisabeth Elliot, page 59 and 61