Joy in Sorrow

The following is an excerpt from my book, Faith Beyond Belief: Understanding True Faith from the Book of James (available on Nook and Kindle).


From Chapter 1: Faith that is Steadfast

The whole point of this discussion [about Job’s pain] is to help us understand what James means when he tells us to consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds. There is simply nothing at all joyful about them. The absolute hardest, most hypocritical thing I could possibly tell you is that you need to be happy because of your trialsbecause that’s what the Bible says. How in the world are we expected to be happy about this level of pain? Do you think that Job was happy about what happened to him?

I do not believe that James here is telling us that we are to be happy about the pain and suffering that we go through. It would be cruel to expect us not to be sorrowful about the painful things in our lives… AND… more importantly, it would be unbiblical… {section omitted}

So we remain in a conundrum. If sorrow and mourning are expected and OK, then what exactly is James trying to say? What does it mean to “consider it pure joy”? Going back to the definition of joy, I think we must lean on the understanding of joy not in the emotional sense – although it is an emotion - but in the sense of being grateful or thankful. God may eventually give us the grace and mercy of allowing us to eventually be truly emotionally happy about the things that have happened to us, but in the moment, we are truly sorrowful and grieved. We will not feel happy about out trials, but we can choose to be grateful. We may not be able to choose to be happy, but even in our sorrow we can choose to be grateful and thankful. I would argue that even when we absolutely do not understand why these things are happening to us, we can choose to thank God for them. We can choose to be grateful for them even in our sorrow. We’ve already shown that Job was in great pain, was sorrowful, and was even having something of a spiritual crisis, but look at Job’s deliberate response to his circumstances.

Job 1:21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job 1:22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

Job 2:10 (In response to his wife) But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Is it possible for us to make a conscious choice to praise God in the storm - to choose to be grateful even in sorrow? That is what James is asking us do.

Understanding God's Will

All of us desire to understand God's Will for our lives.  The following is an excerpt from my book, Faith Beyond Belief: Understanding True Faith from the Book of James (available on Nook and Kindle).

When we place our faith in our own plans and our own wisdom, we demonstrate truly how foolish and arrogant we are.  Psalm 33:10 says that God brings the council of nations to nothing and frustrates the plans of the people.  Proverbs 16:1-3 tells us that the answer to our plans lies with the Lord, not with ourselves.  When we commit ourselves to the Lord, and our plans align with his, then they will be accomplished.

Understanding God’s Will

James McDonald did a sermon series on God’s will in which he said that God’s will is not a “dot on the floor” such that we are either on it and in God’s will or not on it and not in God’s will.  Instead, much of God’s will is revealed to us through scripture.  For example, it is not necessarily true that it is God’s will for you to marry a specific person or to have a specific house or work at a specific job.  Sometimes God lays before us multiple choices that are equally good so that we may have the desires of our heart.  However, we must live with and make the best of those choices.  For example, once we marry, it is God’s will for us to remain married to that person for the rest of our lives.

Sometimes, God has a very specific task he wants us to accomplish.  When he does this, it is always a perfectly clear and unmistakable calling.  Most of the time, God’s will for our lives has nothing to do with the mundane choices over which we so often stress.  That is not to say God is not interested in those choices, but rather we stress over these mundane choices because we do not fully understand God’s will.  In many cases, God has already given us the direction we need to make these decisions, but we have not looked in the right places for the answers. 

At other times, we stress over things that perhaps may never be revealed.  It may surprise you to know that not only do we not know all of God’s will, but we may never know all of God’s will on this side of eternity.

 Deuteronomy 29:29 says: The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

Those things that God has chosen to tell us about are his Revealed Will to us. Some of these have been revealed to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in God’s Word itself.  Among many other things, his word has revealed his expectations for us (Micah 6:8), his commands for relating to others (John 13:34), what attitudes we are to display (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), his purposes for the works we do (1 Peter 2:15), and even his desires towards us (2 Peter 3:9).  If we take the time to read his word, pay attention to what he has revealed in his word, and then take those things into consideration when we are deliberating on important decisions, we will find that many decisions become clearer.  

Faith Beyond Belief

***UPDATE***

This book was picked up and published by Crosspoint Publishing and is now available in paperback from Amazon.com and can be ordered here.

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I am excited about the fact that recently I self-published a book on both Kindle and Nook.  The title of that book is Faith Beyond Belief: Understanding True Faith from the Book of James.  A description of that book is shown below along with a link to both the Nook and Kindle versions, which are available for the very low, impulse purchase price of $1.99!

Description:

Faith is critical to successful Christian living and yet it is so often misunderstood and misapplied in the Christian life. While Faith is simple, it is not just simple belief. Faith Beyond Belief takes the reader on a journey through the Book of James to discover what it means for a Christian to live by faith. Each chapter describes a characteristic of faith as it is portrayed through James’ letter. Readers will not only discover a fuller explanation of the Book of James, but will also have a better and more practical understanding of faith and how to apply it in their everyday lives.