FINDING JOY AMIDST LIFE’S TRIALS
“How can Joy and trial coexist?” This is a question I have been struggling with over the past few months. It struck me when I was reading James 1. James jumps into this statement almost immediately after introducing himself. It is a very unique way of writing. Here is what I am talking about,
“James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
Greetings.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that testing your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
In our daily lives, various trials weaken us, cause us to doubt God’s nearness, and question our faith. But in verse two, James tells believers to consider it all joy when facing various trials; this sounds sarcastic to me. What is joyful about losing a loved one? What is joyful when we lose our jobs? What is there to rejoice in when we are confronted with prolonged illness? Barrenness? Miscarriages are just a few trials that we encounter as believers.
For quite several years now, I have been dealing with the pain of sick family members. My mum and my siblings have been having these illnesses that we can’t seem to tell will heal anytime soon, which has been one of the most painful things in my life. Whenever I get calls from home about anyone being sick, my face falls, and I ask, “How long, O Lord, will you forget my family forever? Then, Like David, I will trust in you, my Lord and my savior!” But even with this trust, I can’t wait for a day to celebrate a whole month of total health among my family members. It might not sound like something painful, but to me, it has been a thorn in the flesh. The pain has always found a way of eating me up, though I rarely vocalize it, and it is not written on my face. I have always been able to hide it just like many of us can bury our pain, but my heartache is profound, especially at night when I am alone behind those closed doors. I find myself praying in painful tears, sometimes asking God to heal them, other times to give me the grace to endure, but also, there are days I have asked him how long I must wait. My inward pain tells a story without my mouth ever saying a word. My pain almost swallowed me at some point, but Christ showed me how much greater he was than my deepest longing for my family to be well.
Reading James provoked many thoughts and questions about how joy and trials can coexist. But at the end of it, God has opened my heart to see and believe that it is possible to experience joy amid our pain.
Firstly, it begins with acknowledging that pain is inevitable on this side of eternity because we are fallen people living in a fallen world. And our pain is an outcome of the fall. It was not in God’s original plan. The man was to enjoy the fullness of life in the Garden of Eden. But now that we are here, we can keep clinging to God, who can hold us fast in the trials. We can keep looking more to his wonderful face as we wait for the day when all creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We are not without hope. We know that one day, all things will be made new. All tears will be dried, all hearts will be mended, and we will have a life free from pain.
Secondly, we can rejoice that our pain will not be wasted. James says that testing our faith produces steadfastness, which will grow in our maturity and completeness that we would lack nothing. Trials may weaken us, but God has designed it all for our good to create endurance and maturity in us. People commonly say trials increase faith or patience, but James says trials make us “perfect and complete .”Perfect here doesn’t mean without blemish but full and mature. In our pain, Christ completes his work in us; he fully equips us to face the unfinished task he had for us beforehand. As believers, we are sanctified in times of sorrow and made to be more like Christ.
In his Song, “I Asked the Lord that I Might Grow,” John Newton says, He received trials instead, and this is what he said of his trials,
“These inward trials I employ,
From self and pride to set thee free,
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”
Our pains are not wasted. The Lord uses them for our good and for his glory. Whatever he ordains is right; it is not a mistake. And because of that, we can find joy. Our outward bodies may be wasted, we may grow weary and even faint, but in all these, we are being renewed daily.
Thirdly, our trials should remind us of the world’s brokenness and that this world is not our home. And with that, we ought to long for the new Heaven because of our confidence in Christ Jesus. That our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. With eternal perspective in our minds, we can find joy in the middle of our pain and trials, for our eyes are fixed on what is unseen. We are almost home! That should be our delight. So, friend, don’t drop the anchor because of pain. Run the unknown road of pain with the hope that Heaven is waiting for you. Run the race with all endurance!
Lastly, in our pain, we are drawn closer to God and get to know Him more intimately. As a person, through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have gotten to understand God’s sovereignty, something I wouldn’t have naturally known were it not for the pain I have experienced. I have known God’s love and nearness more. In those lonely, cold, hopeless nights when I have had to turn to God in prayer, I have felt the warmth of his embrace, which has given me the courage to say, “Yet I will trust in you.” God has used my hurt to write the lessons of his grace on my heart and set my affections on him.
I have always been drawn to C.S. Lewis and his perspective on pain. Lewis had tasted pain in ways that few can relate to. He lost his mother at an early age, saw his dad emotionally abandon him, suffered from a respiratory illness as a teenager, fought and was wounded in World War I, and finally had to bury his beloved wife. Through all this, Lewis wrote about his heartache in his work The Problem of Pain. In this work, Lewis penned one of his most famous lines:
Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
Pain can cut through the noise of our lives and direct our attention to what truly matters, including our relationship with God. We are most keenly aware of God’s character in our suffering. When our self-sufficiency is peeled away, we see how weak we are. God tells Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9 in that moment of weakness, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” It is in our pain that God has us taste his power.
Finding joy amid suffering doesn’t mean denying or minimizing our pain but recognizing that God is present with us even in our darkest moments and can bring beauty out of our brokenness. May you look to Christ in your pain? In him, you will find unending joy, peace of mind, and calmness of heart. Your troubles may not end, but knowing that you have a sovereign God who won’t allow any tear to be wasted will indeed comfort your heart and cause you to rejoice.