“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3)
There is something profound about the way James views hard times. Difficulties in life, of all shapes and colors (“various kinds”), are not view as an irritation, a nuisance, or a tragedy. They are viewed as a testing of one’s faith. How profound is this!
I am convinced that if we understand this as believers, this will radically change the way we face these difficulties.
If we believe that what comes out of us flows from what is inside of us, then we should view trials as tests of our faith rather than as inconveniences. They reveal who we are; they do not cause us to be something we aren’t.
Paul Tripp gives a helpful illustration of this truth. Taking a bottle of water, Tripp will shake it, splashing the water onto the ground. He then asks the question, “Why did water come out of the bottle?” The immediate answer usually is, “Because you shook it.” While that is the cause as to why water came out, that that is not the ultimate answer. The correct answer is, “Because water was inside the bottle.” The shaking did not produce the water; it simply revealed it.
So it is with us. Hard times reveal who we really are. They are, as James says, a testing of our faith. In this loss of a job, will we be dependent upon the Lord? We may say we are, but are we really? As our bodies age, is our confidence in our intelligence or our athleticism or in our beauty, or is it in the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
A lack of hardships is not good, for we will never realize who we really are. Trials do not change us; they reveal who we are.
So, count it all joy when hard times come in your life. They are a gracious gift from a sovereign God who is bringing them to reveal to you what your heart is really like. And even if there is some nasty filth that comes out of your heart, isn’t God good that he would reveal this to us? What a gift these trials are!
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