“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds . . .” (James 1:2).
Have you ever met a person who actually, literally did what this verse says? I have. Marilyn (not her real name) phoned and told me that her husband has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, her son is recovering from multiple stab wounds inflicted by a crazed stranger in Center City, and her daughter-in-law is so weakened by some bizarre condition that she is unable to hold her newborn. And she was radiating joy.
Marilyn figured that God must be really up to something! He must be really shaking things up for a good purpose for all this to be coming down at once. This, she reasoned, must be nothing other than the “testing of faith” of verse 3 that issues in a new level of “steadfastness,” whose “full effect” makes “perfect and complete” (verse 4). Marilyn wants that “perfect and complete” thing, for herself and for her family. She wants it more than she wants their or her health.
[…]
I know that Marilyn’s counting all of her inherently difficult circumstances as joy is accompanied by a fair amount of muscular thinking and believing. Her logic seems to be this: God is love; He sends trial to build faith; He will reward tenacious faith with something wonderful that no eye can see nor ear can hear nor the heart of man can conceive. Immediately, that understanding of Marilyn’s yields a quiet hope and a joy. It turns out that God really does keep at perfect peace the heart that is steadfast, because it trusts in Him (Isaiah 26:3). Who’d have thought it?
I accept that.
To such an extent that I want to live it.
But I haven’t enjoyed the pain in the process.
PS: Be sure to read the whole piece; I left out several paragraphs: Counting all difficulties as joy.