“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, so when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
It’s so paradoxical to think that hardships are an opportunity for joy. How can that be? Only in Christ is this true. David, having lost his young son to death, responded, “He shall not come back to me but I will go to him.” Only Christ gives us life after death with our loved ones. What joy, and a sustaining hope this brings, that softens the brutal sting of death.
When Job had lost everything, riches, family, and his health, he could confidently share, “I KNOW that my Redeemer lives and in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see Him, and not another. Oh how my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)
There wasn’t bitterness in his message, but joy! He says so much! First, that his Redeemer is alive and involved in the details of our stories. He’s not removed on some Holy mountain, unaware of how hard things can be in this fallen earth. Then he goes on to say that after death has rotted our bodies away, we will live again - whole and complete, and stand before our Savior, face to face.
You can hear this last statement he says with a smile on his weary face and eyes full of anticipation - “Oh how my heart yearns for this day!”
Dear ones, may we allow the trials of this life to amplify what we have in Christ, and bring us JOY. Death is not the end; bad health is not the way our story ends, and a broken and discouraged spirit is soon to be dissolved with God’s amazing grace. May the joy of the Lord truly be our strength. We know there’s more! So much more!
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