Life’s trials usually feel like setbacks, but through the lens of faith, they can transform into profound opportunities for joy. In “Finding Joy in Trials: Embracing Suffering for Christ’s Sake,” we explore the paradox of embracing suffering as an integral part of a joyful life. This article invites you to reconsider the trials you face—not as burdens but as catalysts for growth and deeper connection with Christ. As we delve into scripture, we’ll uncover the transformative power of adversity and the peace that comes from seeing them from a biblical perspective. Join us as we learn to find joy, strength, and solace, even amidst our most challenging moments. Embracing suffering is not merely about endurance; it’s about discovering the beauty and grace that can flourish when we lean into our faith.
Is Finding Joy in Trials a Denial of Reality?
The brother of Jesus begins his book by telling us to do something that sounds impossible.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).
Does that mean we are supposed to enjoy suffering, like masochists? No, we are not required to enjoy suffering. If we did, it wouldn’t be suffering.
“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful” Hebrews 12:11.
When the command to consider trials pure joy, James means to shock us. He expects you to do a, “Wait … what?” and give it careful thought.
What James says is not to enjoy trials, but to consider them joy.
But is that a denial of reality? If trials aren’t joyful, why should we consider them joyful? Does God want us to live in a fantasy world?
The word consider is a cognitive word. It refers to something you think and believe, as opposed to something you feel. You go through a process of reasoning and then come to a particular conclusion that you regard as true. But that is not to say your emotions are uninvolved. It is a thinking word, but “joy” is most definitely a feeling word. The purpose of the thinking is to have an impact on your feeling.
Feeling Comes from Thinking
Don’t make the common mistake of thinking emotions are merely involuntary reflexes that simply happen to you. We are not just mechanistic robots controlled by random hormonal reactions. Emotions are connected with physical processes, but in most cases, those processes are the result of what the soul does, not the cause.
Emotion is the result of your heart’s interpretation of events. If you see a dog and your mind interprets what it sees as a threat, the result of that interpretation is an emotion: fear. A woman sees a bouquet of flowers on the counter, it’s her birthday, and she interprets what she sees as a thoughtful gesture of love from her husband. The result of that interpretation is a range of emotions, such as happiness, gratitude, and love.
But suppose her husband walks into the room and says, “Hey honey, can you please put those flowers in a nice vase for me? It’s Secretary’s Day, and I want to give her something nice.” Now her interpretation of the situation changes dramatically, resulting in very different emotions. Emotions are results of interpretations of circumstances.
In many cases, the thoughts and interpretations happen so quickly that it’s not clear where the emotion is coming from. But emotions do not just come out of the blue. They are related to our assessment of events and the resulting thought progressions.
Beliefs and Values
Interpretations are only half the equation, however. After you interpret the situation, you then weigh that interpretation against your beliefs and values. If you give a child a piece of candy, he might have emotions of exuberant happiness. Give a lollipop to an adult, and it may have no emotional effect at all. Both the kid and the adult interpret your gesture the same way, but the kid values candy far more than the adult. They have different emotional reactions because they value the situation differently.
The same goes for beliefs. Suppose two people get word that a particular candidate won the election. One guy believes this will result in more justice and better conditions, so he is full of hope. The other guy believes it will result in higher taxes and higher crime, so he is full of fear. So the same interpretation of the data results in opposite emotions because of opposite beliefs.
Can Feelings Be Wrong?
Can emotions be right or wrong? Yes. If your feelings are based on a wrong interpretation of the situation, or if they arise from wrong values or wrong beliefs, then they’re wrong.
This is one of the biggest differences between worldly counseling and biblical counseling. In worldly counseling, the main goal is to feel better. In Scripture, the main goal is to feel rightly.
Find Joy in Trials by Interpreting Your Trials Correctly
So back to our text. What is James doing here when he says Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials? He is not saying, “Pretend something is true that isn’t true.” What James is doing here is showing us how to adjust our beliefs about suffering and adjust how much we value the results of suffering, and adjust our interpretation of suffering so that it really will result in actual joy that we can feel. He uses a thinking word instead of a feeling word because to change feelings, you have to first change your ways of thinking.
So many of our problems come not from our suffering, but from wrong interpretation of suffering, wrong beliefs about suffering, and undervaluing the benefits that come from suffering. James teaches us the right way to interpret suffering (as a test of faith). And he corrects our beliefs about suffering by showing us that it is designed for our good.
Changing Your Interpretation (Trials = Tests)
When something hurts, think, “Regardless of the way things seem, the reality is that this suffering is a good thing.” If the medicine tastes terrible but the doctor says, “Trust me, it’s a good thing. Without it you’ll die,” then you will pay good money for that horrible tasting medicine because you think of it as valuable. So the beginning point, when it comes to suffering, is to listen to God when he says, “This suffering that I bring into your life; trust me – it’s a good thing.”
Which Trials?
What kinds of suffering does this include? Does this apply to suffering caused by sinful people around me? Does it apply to suffering caused by my own stupidity? Does it apply to suffering sent by God as chastisement for sin? Is it only for major suffering, or does it also apply to little things? Does this apply to stubbing my toe? Does it apply to losing a loved one? Is it just physical suffering, or also emotional suffering? Notice what James says:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds (James 1:2).
That word translated “of many kinds” points to the wideness of the variety. The idea is that it is not just the categories you would normally think of when you think of suffering. Think more broadly. Think wider variety. The principles applies to every kind of suffering—big small, your fault, someone else’s fault, physical, emotional—consider it all pure joy. It might be an evil thing that people are doing to you, it might be an evil thing that you did to yourself, but none of that changes the fact that what God is doing is a good thing.
Is It a Test?
James refers to our suffering two different ways. The first time it is called trials. The second time it is called testing. The first word, trial, is the Greek word peirasmos. That is a word that can either mean suffering or temptation, depending on the context. Here it is referring to suffering – anything that causes grief or sorrow or pain.
Then James refers to those events as the testing of your faith. That tells us something about how to correctly interpret the trials in your life. They are tests. Sometimes people will say, “I wonder if this is some sort of test from God?” You don’t have to wonder. All trials are tests. You get a mosquito bite; that’s a test. You get terminal cancer; that’s a test. Your boss yells at you at work; that’s a test. You get in an accident and become a quadriplegic; that’s a test. Kids disobey – test. Cancer – test.
Tests of what? Your faith. Verse 3 – the testing of your faith. Every event of hardship in your life, big or small, is designed to test your faith. And it is the sort of test that also refines – like putting gold in fire. It reveals whether the gold is real and how pure it is, and in the process of revealing that, it burns the impurities away and makes it better. Suffering does that to your heart—tests it and improves it.
You can tell if faith is real by whether suffering makes you run toward God or away from him. Some people get angry at God when they suffer. Others go through the exact same suffering and it makes them seek God all the more earnestly. How can the same suffering have those opposite effects? It is because the suffering is a test that reveals and exposes the fact that the first person’s faith wasn’t pure (or maybe wasn’t even real), and the second person’s was.
Changing Your Beliefs (Testing Produces Perseverance)
If all your suffering is a test, how do you pass the test? The answer is in verse 3.
“Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials … knowing that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:2-3).
How do you pass the test? By knowing something. This is where changing your beliefs comes into play.
James is not calling us to some silly, mindless optimism that is not grounded in anything. This is not the power of positive thinking (“I got hit by a car—at least it wasn’t a bus!”). That is not the sort of thing James is talking about here. He is saying, “Interpret suffering as a good, beneficial, valuable thing, because of something you know to be true—namely, that you’re going to get perseverance out of the deal.”
Changing Your Values (Perseverance Is Priceless)
Everything James is telling us to do here stands or falls based on how much we value perseverance. Imagine a trainer who says, “Consider it pure joy when you feel that burn, because you know that means you’re going to be in shape soon.” That motivates some people but not others. Why? Because some people value being in shape extremely highly, and others don’t care that much about it. If he said, “Consider it pure joy when you feel that burn because once you complete the workout I’ll give you a million dollars,” then more people would find it possible to consider it pure joy. So when James tells us to consider all our suffering pure joy because we know we get perseverance out of the deal, that gets us nowhere unless we highly value perseverance.
The Definition of Perseverance
Perseverance is the ability to outlast your trial. For the Christian, all suffering is temporary. Our trials come, stay for a while, then go away. And the goal is to still be standing firm when the trial finally goes away. Perseverance is not just an individual act of fortitude or strength. It is something that is deep in your character that manifests itself in all kinds of situations in life, so no matter what the trial/test, your steadfastness and resolve outlasts it.
Life without Perseverance
Perseverance is a priceless treasure because life without perseverance is a nightmare. Everything ends in failure. People who lack perseverance will hang in there for a while, but at some point they buckle, and revert to some sinful response.
And we all have different ways of caving in. For some people, it is escape. If a conversation gets too hard, they just walk out of the room. If a problem at church gets too hard, they just leave the church. If work gets too hard, they quit their job. School gets hard, they drop out. A relationship gets hard, they just cut it off. Marriage gets hard, get a separation. They can deal with problems up to a point, but once they reach that tipping point, they just run away. And if they can’t run physically, they run emotionally. They just retreat into a cocoon of self-pity.
For others, caving in means reverting to anger. Instead of continuing in patience, they just give in to the impulse to become angry. They can’t make it all the way through the trial without getting mad.
For others, caving in means doubting God—questioning his wisdom, his goodness, his power, or his love.
Another form of caving in is resorting to some earthly distraction for your comfort. “I’m suffering so much, I deserve this pleasure.”
Another way people give in is by just quitting. As soon as things get hard, you quit. Life is hard for people who lack perseverance, because you can’t finish anything. You have got half-finished projects all over your house. You make resolutions, but you can’t ever follow through. You decide to go on a diet, but it only lasts a couple weeks. You decide to get in shape, but after four or five trips to the gym, it goes by the wayside. All the books in your library have a bookmark somewhere around chapter 2. You have read Genesis ten times more than any other book in the Bible because of all the times you resolved to read the whole Bible cover to cover and you gave up not long after you started. A good portion of your life is spent just staring at hard jobs. “Wow, look at all that laundry. That’s a lot. I should be doing it. I’m going to do it right now. Wow, look at all that laundry.” – and you just can’t seem to get moving.
And so your life becomes one, giant truckload of guilt that you carry around all the time. You see your backpack – “Homework – all that homework. I really need to get busy on that. The big semester project is due in a week; I should really get started on it.”
“I should study for that test.”
“I should write that paper.”
“I should do those labs”.
“I … wonder what’s on my social media feed?”
When we lack perseverance and we quit rather than following through, the whole reason we do that is to make life easier. But instead it makes life harder. It makes life miserable. You always have this mountain of work you are supposed to be doing and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and instead of feeling refreshed and rested you feel more and more overwhelmed—even though you aren’t doing anything.
Not only that, but you have constant relationship problems. You don’t ever have any deep friendships, because you bail as soon as things get hard. Your marriage is always in the toilet because you can’t make it through any conflict without falling into sin.
Life is hard for people who lack perseverance—especially for Christians who lack perseverance because your worst enemy gets to control your life. The devil, who hates you and wants to destroy you and use your life to dishonor God, will be able to stop you in your tracks any time he wants just by attaching some hardship to what you are doing. So your worst enemy now has the ability to steer you wherever he wants you to go.
This is not a small matter. All success in the Christian life depends on perseverance.
“The seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (Luke 8:15).
“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Hebrews 10:36).
Nothing less than your eternal destiny is at stake.
“He who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22).
“To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7).
If you lack perseverance your life will end in disaster.
Maturity
On the other hand, if you have perseverance, look what James promises:
“Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4).
Maturity. Becoming what God designed you to be. Getting out of your caterpillar form and becoming an actual butterfly. Becoming an oak tree instead of just an acorn. Being a functioning, healthy adult instead of a helpless infant. Maturity is when you become what you are supposed to be.
So think, for a minute, about what spiritual maturity is. We know what social maturity is—when you respond in social situations like an adult instead of like a child. So what is spiritual maturity? Spiritual maturity is when the spiritual things about you are functioning the way God designed them to function. Like your emotions. How does it affect your emotions when you hear about someone in our church who repented of a sin, compared to how you feel when your team gets a big win or you get a raise at work?
How about your assumptions? Love always assumes the best possible motive. The flesh assumes what it wants to assume. How far along that line of maturity have you progressed so far?
How about attitudes? What are your attitudes about authority, or suffering, or the church, or the lost? How closely do your attitudes mirror God’s attitudes?
How about your desires? Do you desire the most valuable things the most, or are you still desiring unimportant, temporal, earthly things more than spiritual, eternal things? How does your desire for a new car or better house or an easier life compare to your desire for eternal reward on Judgment Day?
What about your values? Could someone tell by watching you live your life that eternal things are much more valuable to you than temporal things?
Emotions, assumptions, attitudes, desires, values—those are all things that determine your responses to things that happen in life. John MacArthur once said, “Spiritual maturity is when your involuntary reactions are godly.” That is a great statement. When you have spiritually mature attitudes, mature assessments of things, mature emotions, mature values and desires, you will find that your quick, instant, kneejerk, involuntary reactions to things reflect the heart of God. That is spiritual maturity. Do you want that? It comes one way—through perseverance.
The reason you need perseverance in order to reach spiritual maturity is because all other virtues depend on perseverance. Scripture speaks of perseverance in doing good (Ro.2:7), perseverance in hope (Ro.8:25), in ministry (2 Cor.12:12), in doing God’s will (Heb.10:36), in running the race (Heb.12:1), in hard work (Rev.2:2), in faith (Rev.14:12), and on and on. We need perseverance for every single Christian virtue.
And that is why, whenever a trial or hardship comes into your life, it is an occasion for rejoicing.
Conclusion
I am amazed at how many Christians don’t seem to like this passage. Preachers often feel they have to apologize for it. One commentator had a long section on how important it is that we don’t ever use this passage for grief counseling. It’s considered insensitive to quote James 1:2 to people who are suffering.
That’s heartbreaking. Are we forgetting that it was the Holy Spirit who inspired James to write this? And he didn’t write it to a bunch of people sitting on the beach sipping drinks at a resort. These are Jewish Christians scattered around the Gentile world suffering greatly. Many of them were in deep poverty, having wages withheld from them, being dragged into court unjustly. These people were suffering real hardships, and James not only says this to them, but he begins with it.
I love this passage. I don’t know how I would make it through life without this passage. Don’t be ashamed of this truth. I hope if you see me getting snowed under by trials that you will remind me of the truths from this passage as soon as possible.
Can this passage be used in an insensitive way or misapplied? Sure, but that does not mean we should hide these marvelous principles from those who need them at the moment they need them most. Just use it in a sensitive way and apply it correctly and explain how it is done. Then it will be a soothing, healing balm to the troubled soul. The problem is not with people quoting James 1:2 – Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds. The problem is when they stop there and fail to quote verses 3 through 12. They tell people to rejoice, but don’t explain how. Change your interpretation of suffering, change your beliefs about what is happening, and change how much you value perseverance and the outcomes of perseverance. Then your considering trials joy will turn to actually feeling real joy in the midst of suffering.
Application Questions:
- Which current trial in your life are you finding it the hardest to consider pure joy?
- Do you think it is because of wrong interpretation, wrong values, or wrong beliefs?
- When you buckle under pressure of a trial, which kind of buckling are you most prone to? (giving up, getting angry, self-pity, rewarding yourself with some sin or distraction, questioning God’s goodness or love or power, etc.)
Resources
For a full sermon on James 1:2-4 and sermons on the rest of the book of James, visit TreasuringGod.com.
If you struggle with anxiety in your suffering, be sure to get your copy of Anxiety and the Peace of God: Six Biblical Cures for Worry, Stress, and Inner Turmoil.
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