My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers’ temptations, knowing this…that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. KJV James 1: 2-4
Good day followers. This week has been a most trying week for many of us. Our faith and character have been put to the test. James says here to count it all joy.
“Yeah….right” some of us may say.
If you will allow me to, I’d love to quote this same passage from the New Living Translation of the bible which reads as thus:
Dear brothers and sister, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.
Followers, test and trials are for our benefit. They are not allowed so that God can see what we will or will not do. He already knows. Remember he is God and being so, there is nothing hidden from Him. Omniscient means that God knows all.
On August 7th, 2010, the Holy Spirit and I was conversing about trials and test. Knowing me as I sometimes do, I was probably complaining about a challenge I’d faced. What the Holy Spirit said to me is this:
Just as one down pour of rain doesn’t continuously keep the earth watered so that the earth can bring forth and produce, so it is in the walk of salvation. One test and one trial does not produce in the believer the fruit of perfection, the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). If the earth needed only one down pour of rain then the flood waters of Noah’s day should still be causing the earth to bring forth and bud. There should never have been any further need for rain. Being that rain continues to come this shows that the one down pour was not sufficient for the earth to produce. The down pour of Noah’s day held another purpose. This down pour was for cleansing not for the production of nature.
Within nature you can constantly see the need for rain. Rainstorms even have a perfect work in the earth. Without the down pour from the clouds the earth withers and dies because it lacks what is needed to help it to prosper. In drought nature cries out, “I need substance, I am sick, I need nutrients and I am dying.”
The sun and the water have a very imperative part in the production of nature just as the Son (Jesus) and the Water (Holy Spirit) has a very imperative part in the walk of the believer
Unlike the believer nature does not run from the rain or think on the discomforts of getting wet or drenched. Yes, nature has been designed to receive the rain and to stand up under the pressures of the rain and so has the believer. The earth has been fashioned where it supports natures and when the rains come adding with it weight to the plant life, the earth doesn’t crumble under the weight.
From this analogy of nature, the message from the throne is, “The believer is supported. The believer is designed to weather the storm. Whatever the amount of rain allowed by God to fall on the believer he or she is supported and can withstand the rain.
Scriptures that indicate the Holy Spirit as Water: Isaiah 44:3, John 4:13-14 & John 7:37-39
So… dear followers we’ve had a trying week. Some of our trials was at work, some at home, some in the grocery store and the doctor’s office and these trials was not the work itself but the people at work. Some of our trials stemmed from what we wanted and couldn’t get and others of our trials and test stemmed from what others wanted from us and couldn’t get. All in all, our test and trials stemmed from something within.
As we look back to the verses, we quoted from the book of James we see that various test and trials are for the making of us as believers. God allowed the circumstances and situations to show us ourselves and even himself. Our test and trials show us how much like God we really are. They show us a lot about our character and our ability or inability to walk in the likeness of Christ. Our test and trials show us how much of God’s word we are or are not keeping. They show us what things we are very much alive in and what things we need to submit to the Holy Spirit for perfection. Some of our test and trials show us where we have grown and in this we take great joy. But….
Where is the joy in seeing where we have missed the mark? Many of my test and trials this week have shown me where growth is needed, and some have shown where I have grown. Thinking back over the happenings of the week I have gotten excited by the knowledge of; God allowed it to rain so that I can grow and produce.
We would love to have a walk in and with Christ were all is hunky-dory, where there is sunshine continuously and never storms or rain. This way of life would not be profitable to us. Where there is constant sunshine…. there is drought and desert.
Our greatest trial and test in life is “people.” Yes, that’s right……people. It isn’t the car note, the lights, water and gas bills and certainly not the job itself but the people at the job, the people at the grocery store, the people at the house or in the family. Truthfully speaking if we didn’t have to interact or deal with people we could probably get by almost unscathed in life. But would we be a profitable people?
The things people say and do have a way of provoking and drawing out words and actions from and in us that would have otherwise remained dormant. Knowing us better than we know ourselves, God allows situations and circumstances that will surface the hidden things within us; the things he wants to mortify or put to death; the things he wants to crucify. And sometimes the things God allows are for the purpose of erecting a hidden treasure within us or a good that lies dormant within that he wants to use for his glory.
From “A Desire so Strong” page 303 we quote the poem entitled: “The Good.”
For your best I allow things that some don’t think I should. Yet everything that I allow, is working for your good. Though much of what is allowed becomes uncomfortable to the flesh, hold dear to heart that I am God and I know what is best.
Your eyes can only see in short, what lies in distance and height and for this cause, I allow what I do to work in you what’s right. I allow things for correction of behaviors and attitudes as well as to correct such things as thought; also, to mortify the ungodly characters that a sinful life has brought.
Trials test and hardships will change intents of the heart, and many times it will gap broken bridges where we’re not united in part.
So be not dismayed, dear child, when things aren’t as you would. Just know that I only allow some things… to work in you…the good.
continued….