James 1:2

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. James 1:2

Now let me think about this for a while. When was the last time I really faced a trial? I mean, really faced a trial? Okay, they aren't all that easy to think up. At least not any recent ones, but maybe that's because our lives are so much easier. I mean it's gotten a lot more comfortable without having to put up with the persecutions and other unpleasant aspects of the early Church. Perhaps that comfort is also what has led to our complacency. All of this of course goes on a downhill slope, and pretty fast too. The comfort opens up to complacency and the complacency opens up to complaining. Now whenever I do have a trial how do I respond? Is it with joy, or is it with complaints?

I hate to say this but sometimes even Church has become a trial for me. It's so early. It's so boring. It's so repetitive, especially if you've done it all your life. Originally Christians would thrive off of going to Church and it was the highlight of their life. Now, it is just another chapel message except for it's on a Sunday instead of mid-week (that's for all the BBC students out there).

The happy stories seem to make it worthwhile, you know, that whole "consider it joy" bit. Yeah, I mean if I go through a trial and come out victorious or somehow better because of it than, yeah, I can consider it joy. But that joy is almost as a consequence. To go through a trial and come out better is to go through it and still come out rejoicing. That is the proof of a trial's true worth. It is not in the trial itself, whether it's grad A hard or a lower grade of hardness. That's not it at all. No, the true test of a trial is in whether or not I can rejoice through it all. Can I? Even if there is no apparent victory (other than the un-lost joy), can I still rejoice?