It’s easy to be happy when things are going our way. Maybe we got a promotion at work, everything is lining up to purchase our first home, or we’ve passed a test we’ve been studying so hard for. The Bible doesn’t tell us to just be happy during the joyful times, though. What if we lost our job or our loan fell through? Maybe we failed the test we’ve poured over. What then? It isn’t in our nature as humans to celebrate in the difficulties that life presents to us, so it’s okay to be angry or sad, right?
While it’s okay to feel upset, James 1:2-4 tells us to “2 Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Consider it ALL joy. So how do we find the joy when we feel like we can’t win? We let go of what we can’t control, and we talk to God. We don’t know the obstacles and adversaries in the path that we would have chosen because there is a bigger picture that only God can see. We can’t always understand what His plan looks like, but we can have faith that we will be taken care of. He makes no mistakes and He always provides. He’s also given us the ability to have peace through His Holy Spirit.
Maybe the promotion didn’t happen because a better job was going to come along, and we wouldn’t have applied had we been training for our new role. Maybe the house we wanted had structural damage that could have cost thousands of dollars down the road. Maybe we will never understand why things didn’t work out like we hoped they would. That’s okay, too. Hold onto hope because there is beauty in waiting, too. Have faith in His purpose for your life, and all the while, count it all as joy.
