That’s Joy?

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; (James 1:2 KJV)

Or, to but it another way:

Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials; (James 1:2 NASB)

Preposterous, isn’t it?  How can we count something as joy when it’s also described as a trial or a temptation?  How are we supposed to feel when someone we love has been given a prognosis that will change an entire family’s dynamics?  Will cost them their health and may be life threatening? 

Where’s the joy in that?  And believe me, I’ve been asking such questions since my mother’s ALS diagnosis over thirty years ago, and the questions come back to me as we’ve gone through a series of health related issues this past year.

People I love dearly, as though my life depended upon it, have faced and are facing diagnoses and prognoses that affect our family’s way of life. Yet, I understand what James is telling us, and it was made very clear in a recent In Touch devotional, “Trials and Joy”, which said:  “these verses are not telling us to be happy in our pain, but rather to rejoice in the blessings that accompany suffering … thereby produce endurance and spiritual maturity.  In every trial He has hidden a beautiful and precious gem.”

I’m not certain about their devotional’s “test our faith” part because I don’t believe temptations come from God.  I do know that He always provides a means of leaving temptations behind, even if it is a temptation to blame Him – or deny Him – because of it:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 KJV)

Some will say that God only makes perfection, because that is what He is – perfect.  Although He is perfect and He did make this world, it is not perfect and it was made that way on purpose. We gain only a small glimpse of that purpose as we draw near to Him, so our knowledge is limited.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV)

Through both of my daughters’ spinal surgeries, through the spinal surgery of my Oklahoma Sister-in-law, the heart surgery of my Ohio Sister-in-law, through my Oklahoma Brother-in-law’s cancer treatments, through my Beloved Husband’s shoulder surgery and his Myasthenia Gravis diagnosis, all within the last year, each one of them has not wavered in the faith that God’s will is working in their lives.

Each one of them has continued to be a faithful witness, just as my mother was during her life with ALS, that neither disease nor death is sufficient to separate us from the love of God.

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. (2 Timothy 1:12 KJV)