“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

When I first read this scripture I thought… really?? Do the words joy and trials really belong in the same sentence? I think not… I felt so far from joy and instead felt overwhelmingly disappointed in the midst of many ongoing trials. To say the least, I found this scripture a challenging read. But instead of just turning away from it and closing my heart, I sat with it and pondered it for a while.

I really began to focus on that very first word, Consider. I realised I wasn’t being asked to feel pure joy in trials (and that was a relief!) but instead to change my perspective; it was an invitation to change how I thought about my ongoing trials despite how I was feeling. Some days I feel a lot of negative emotions, particularly during setbacks, such as anger, annoyance, depression, disappointment and frustration, to name a few. I can’t just stop the feelings or decide to simply feel a different way. But I have realised I don’t have to stay and dwell in the negative emotions when they arise. I can’t choose my emotions but I can choose my thoughts and I realised that by changing my thoughts I could influence how I felt.

I have to choose to think that even though this may not feel good right now, I am able to look beyond this moment and see the good things happening inside me that’s the result of this hard season, that my character is being shaped for good in the process of these trials. And I have to keep choosing, even on the days where I feel I would much rather it all be over, than be mature! By choosing to see a positive outcome of my circumstances, despite how bad and hard it feels to be going through it, I began to feel more positive in my circumstances, although nothing on the outside had really changed. On some days I even managed to experience some joy in the midst of my trials, which had previously felt nearly impossible.

I’m choosing to try to adjust the way I think about trials and hard times, as I have realised the hard times aren’t going anywhere. Trials and tribulations will keep coming and coming, again and again, whether we like it or not… The season will change and look different but life is hard, whatever is going on in our lives. There will be good times, seasons of relief and peace, but winter always comes. If we can change the way we see and think about these seasons, we won’t be so thrown when they hit us, as we know they won’t take us out but will only make us stronger. This scripture in James suggests that we need to undergo trials and tribulations in order to become mature and complete. Most of us would say we want to be mature and complete but are we willing to walk through the trials to get there? We have to be able to see we need the good times and the bad times to become shaped and moulded, mature and complete, in order to receive all God has for us in this life.

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