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Has Siri ever steered you down a road to a dead end?

She led my family down a dead-end road once rather than the promised entrance of the beautiful Blue Spring State Park. 

There was no canoeing or manatees at the end of that road. And no joy. Thanks, Siri. Wrong turn.

At first glance, it could seem like the biblical author James was somewhat of an ancient version of Siri when he wrote, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” 

Uh, No, James. Wrong turn. 

We all know that trials and joy are not found at the end of the same road. 

Joy is found where our lives fall into place—not fall apart. 

When life makes us want to celebrate, not hyperventilate. 

Surely, James goes too far combining joy and trials. Like Siri and perfect directions, some things just don’t go together. 

Where’s your compassion in our pain, James?

But James isn’t the one who charted this unexpected path. He wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 

His command to “count it all joy” when life falls apart is really God’s command. We cannot separate God’s Word from every aspect of His glorious and perfect character—including His compassion, His wisdom, and His love.

But How?

How can we count it all joy when all we want to do is cry? Or rage? Or at least grumble a little?

How do we make sense of James 1:2–4?

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4)

If you’re still stumbling over the “count it all joy when we meet trials” part of the command like I did, I found it helps if we skip to the last verse in this passage (verse four) and work backward to verse two. 

“That you may be perfect and complete,
lacking in nothing” (James 1:4).

Who doesn’t want that? 

Imagine being completely free of shortcomings and weaknesses. 

Perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 

Doesn’t this thought flood your heart with peace, hope, and joy?

Of course, we could never pull this off in our own strength. If we could, we would have already. But God can. And He does.

Let’s see how God does this by working backward to the beginning of verse four.

“Let steadfastness have its full effect” (James 1:4).

Ah ha! This is how we reach this desired destination of perfection—by letting the Holy Spirit fill us with stick-to-it-tiveness, never-give-up-determination, and get-back-up-strength in our trials for as long as it takes for it to have its full and glorious effect in us— to shape into the image of Christ. 

And all we must do is “let steadfastness have its full effect.” We just have to get out of its way. Just let it have it’s full effect.

That sounds easy enough, right. Just get out of its way? 

Except, no one needs steadfastness to keep doing something easy or pleasant. Only the things we don’t want to do—like endure trials—require steadfastness.

Trials trigger a fight or flight reaction in us—a desire to destroy the trials or outrun them, not endure them.

No, letting steadfastness have its full effect is not natural. 

Apart from a work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we’ll bail on steadfastness almost every time. We’ll cave in and fall back to our default mode. 

Let’s not give up. Let’s make steadfastness our default mode.

But how? 

James tells us in verse three.

“For you know that the testing of your
faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:3).

Isn’t this just like God? 

The testing of our faith—also known as “trials”—are what produce the steadfastness we need to endure our trial. 

We want the steadfastness. It makes enduring trials easier. But to gain steadfastness, we need the trials to test and grow our faith. 

Oh, we want the steadfastness, but we don’t want the trial.

We want Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego type faith. The “Even if God doesn’t save us, we will not bow to your idol, Nebuchadnezzar” rock-solid type faith. But we don’t want to get sent into captivity in Babylon or tossed into a fiery furnace (Daniel 3).

We want to be Daniel, who the king trusts, but we do not want to be the target of evil men or dropped into a den of snarling lions (Daniel 6).

We dream of being as faithful to God as Joseph, but we don’t want to be thrown into a pit, sold by our brothers, or forgotten in prison after being falsely accused (Genesis 37–50).

We want to be diamonds without enduring the diamond-producing pressure. 

And yet—to have faith as radiant as a diamond. What a joy that would be!

Alright, let’s keep backing up in our passage. 

We’re back to the beginning and that seemingly perplexing command:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you
meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2).

Now it makes sense, doesn’t it. And it no longer leaves the bitter taste it left before we got to see the godly wisdom of God’s command.

The Lord really does use trials to lead us to joy. 

The trials are necessary tools in God’s loving hands that create a shining diamond out of our coal-shaped faith.

And this leads us to a choice. 

We can let trials continue to exhaust us with fear-gripped prayers and anger-induced insomnia. 

Or we can rejoice in the moment—in the trial—that God has purposed every one of our trials to do us good and bring Him glory. In the middle of our trial, He is doing us good. 

We can choose to just see the trial and live in fear or anger. Or we can live with the end in sight.

In the midst of our trial we can look forward to the very end, the end goal—keep it in sight that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

God Gives Opportunities, Not Problems

My mother’s cancer wasn’t the problem that led me to despair. The problem was that I kicked against God for letting her have cancer.

I only saw the vileness of cancer. I couldn’t imagine something so evil might be part of God’s will for her life or comprehend that He had planned it for good.

I counted it all distress, not all joy.

Finding Joy in Trials vs. Enjoying Trials

Finding joy in trials and enjoying trials are two very different things. 

A trial is still a trial. 

But God is still God. 

He is still the God of the impossible—the God who leads us to being able to truly count it all joy when we encounter various trials because in and through our trial, God is about to do a great work in and through us.  

With my newfound understanding of James 1:2–4, I could now see the way to the impossible. I could now see my way to joy that not even the worst trials can destroy because our joy is rooted and grounded in Christ, not our circumstances.

As we travel this often-hard journey of life, we’re going to swerve back and forth between tears born out of sorrow and joy born out of trust, and sometimes we’ll have both at the same time. But we never have to descend into despair. 

As we fix our eyes on the Lord and trust Him with—and in—our trial, we will let steadfastness have its full effect because we will know and believe that steadfastness will do a glorious work in us that will strengthen our faith. 

And it’s our faith that governs our reactions, and it’s our reactions that reveal the true condition of our faith. And around and around and around we go around this most unexpected and faithful road to joy. 

Trials are not a dreaded dead end to despair when we trust in and follow God—not Siri.

Trials lead to exceeding great joy, no matter what—as impossible as it may seem—because God is in them, and He is with us.

Exceedingly Great Joy—No Matter What

No where we look in God’s Word, we will see that He has never promised that in this life we will be free of grief or pain. 

God gave our bodies over two billion nerve endings. Physical pain is going to happen—emotional pain is going to happen, too. 

Our world is fallen and decaying. Sin and death will and should grieve our hearts.

But even if “the worst” gets worse, God uses the trials of His children to produce the opposite of what we’d expect. They produce joy in the Lord, the God of our salvation.

Day by day and trial by trial, God brings us further and further along on His faithful and unexpected path to joy, not to a dead end. 

For those who belong to Christ, our joy will never come to a dead end, but our trials will. They will eventually come to an eternal dead end. 

And we will forever stand before our Lord, complete and perfect, lacking absolutely nothing.

And, oh, what a joy that will be!

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A version of the following post first appeared on Revive Our Hearts.
(Learn more about ROH here.)