Just a not so quick thought

The book of James is one of my favorites of the whole Bible. It's pretty hard sometimes to swallow since James doesn't tiptoe around anything. I've loved being able to read it for myself several times as well as hear different teachers/preachers expound on the letter written by Jesus' little brother (who didn't even believe in Jesus at first!).

A certain passage has been coming up over and over in the last few months and I decided to just to throw it out there to you.

"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." James 1:2-4

First of all, I can't say I "count it all joy" when even small things go wrong. I confess, I usually complain. Why should I consider it good when bad things happen? Apparently, James thinks it has something to do with our faith...and if you know anything about Hebrews 11 (especially verse 6) it's impossible to please God without faith.

I could go into the whole illustration of lifting weights (after all I was a Kinesiology major in college) to remind myself that like our muscles have to be put in distress or tested in order to grow/become stronger, so must our faith. But what if that still doesn't motivate me?

Recently, I started to pay more attention to the last part of verse 4, "that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." God doesn't want me to be lacking in anything! He wants me to be perfect and complete....and lacking in nothing!!! (I am NOT talking about material things!) Why? Because He knows at that point we will finally be able to experience Him in all His glory, majesty, and beauty the way He intended for us to from the beginning, as well as a loving Daddy that we can hug and kiss and talk to face to face.

Wasn't that the first lie in the beginning? The Enemy didn't simply tell Eve, "You should disobey God," right off the bat. He had to make her believe she was lacking in the first place (which she wasn't) and then question God's intentions toward her. He had to make her think God didn't really care or have the best for her and that she had to reach out and take it for herself. And what happened? By doing this she (and the rest of us) did become "lacking" in pretty much everything.

But what do we read in James? That God wants us to lack nothing (again not in a material sense)!!! And He wants to be the One to give it to us...because He's the ONLY One who can. James isn't really the only place we read about God's efforts to reconcile with us...the whole Bible tells us His story to rescue us.

So, how can I have joy in trials? Well, I know when they come it won't be easy, and I know I'll probably whine about them out loud (probably to some of you), but I pray that through those trials my faith muscle will be strengthened and that God would use the perseverance to make me complete and lacking in nothing. I pray.

Do you have experience with this? Please share!

If you want to go a little deeper (okay a lot deeper, and probably makes more sense) in this topic you can watch this video:

Joy in Pain // James 1:1-12 from Breakaway Ministries on Vimeo.

Thanks for letting me process with you!