Today's Word
James 1:2-4
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Reflection
To "count it all joy" when you face trials grates at first. How can a trial be joy? James' answer is not that the trial itself is good, but lies in what it forges.
Trial, he says, produces perseverance. Perseverance does not grow in comfortable places. It is cultivated only when there is weight to be endured. The ground of joy is not the pain but the maturity it will shape at its end.
When the meaning of your present difficulty can't be seen, remember it may be a process forging something. The sight that looks toward the end makes today's endurance different.
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