“we need to train ourselves to respond with joy to our circumstances”

Download discussion questions:  James 1:1-4 Further Discussion
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I encourage you to look at the passage in James before you read this Blog entry.  What do you see in the text yourself?  What questions come to your mind?  How would you interpret what the writer says?  After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.

An Important “Introduction”

Our discussion this week was a continuation from our previous time together.  Some of the “Unresolved Questions” needed more examination. We wanted to gain a better understanding of the beginning of the letter of James.  As one member of our group observed, the opening verses are often treated as “just an introduction.”  It is too easy to give superficial agreement to “Consider it all joy…” and then move quickly to the rest of this letter.  Nothing James wrote is about “superficial agreement.”

Clarifying Terms

It had been a couple of weeks since we met to discuss James 1:1-4.  We spent some time refreshing our thinking about some of the words James used.

• • “Consider” is a command to make an active choice of attitude.
  • “Joy” transcends circumstantial happiness to become a settled sense of well-being, even in times of difficulty or sadness.
  • “Trials” seem to be any (“various”) hardships or difficulties or sufferings we encounter.
  • “Testing” is the refining process that is used to demonstrate genuineness.
  • “Perfect and complete” (sometimes translated “mature and entire”) describe a richness of spiritual formation that draws us to deeper trust in and dependence on God.

With those terms in mind, our paraphrase of James’s “introduction” might be summarized as

Choose an attitude of settled well-being when you face difficulties as they refine your faith to draw you nearer to God.

Unresolved Questions…

Instead of “superficial agreement” we chose to spend more time thinking and exploring such a counterintuitive idea.  How can we seriously think of joy and trials in the same breath?  Isn’t that just a nice spiritual-sounding cliché?  Is there any practical application of “Consider it all joy…”?

One person in our group noted that the command makes a little more sense as he has gotten older.  Sometimes hindsight of a difficult time shows that there was some refining happening.  As he said, “Maybe I came out a little shinier.”  But even then, the joy was only possible after, not during, the trial.

Someone else asked about trials that show no positive outcome even years later.  Another questioned about trials that will not end until we are with the Lord in paradise.  And James says nothing about reducing the painful reality of the trials.  Yet it is a clear command in Scripture, so how are we to obey?  In a few verses James will rebuke hearers who are not doers (James 1:22-25.).

Any discussion that takes “Consider it all joy…” seriously reveals the need for more wisdom.  Asking difficult or awkward questions often does that.

What Wisdom?

James anticipated that need: “But if any of you lacks wisdom…”  A person in our group commented that it might have been easier if James mentioned the wisdom first.  Then we might be more prepared for the jolting command about joy and trials.  Someone else pointed out that our discussion had made us aware of the need for more wisdom.  Verse 2 could even be a set-up to whet the appetite for wisdom.  We would all agree that we need wisdom in a theoretical way.  But confronted with a seemingly impossible command, now we are more than eager to find that wisdom.

We discussed what wisdom James promised.  Is this a verse to “claim” whenever we face a decision?  One person gave an example, “Should I apply for this job?”  But the consensus of our group was that the context of this promise is very specific.  The wisdom James had in mind is related directly to joy in trials.

The wording of the passage ties the intended wisdom to the subject of joy in trials.  Verse 4 completes the results of refining trials with “…lacking in nothing.”  The next sentence (verse 5) begins with “But if any of you lacks wisdom…” using the same word (λείπω, leipo).

Likewise, the grammar of the passage makes the connection even more clear.  The “if” in verse 5 is a construction that assumes the condition is true, “that James assumes, at least for the sake of argument, the reality of the situation, at least for some members of the community.”[1]  Surely James anticipated the shocking nature of his opening statement.  He knew that any honest reader would be challenged to know how to be a “doer” of that command, so he introduced the topic of wisdom from God.

Growing Wisdom, Growing Trust

If we are to seek wisdom, what might that wisdom look like?  One suggestion was that we might be able to see more clearly what God was doing in us in the refining process.  As mentioned near the beginning of our discussion, hindsight is helpful.  Wisdom to understand the process we are experiencing might make joy more likely.  But how much information would we require?  Someone commented that the infinite intricacies of God’s providence certainly are beyond our complete comprehension.

There are times when we can do all that a fellow creature needs if only he will trust us. In getting a dog out of a trap, in extracting a thorn from a child’s finger… the one fatal obstacle may be their distrust. We are asking them to trust us in the teeth of their senses, their imagination, and their intelligence. We ask them to believe that what is painful will relieve their pain…. We ask them to accept apparent impossibilities: that moving the paw farther back into the trap is the way to get it out—that hurting the finger very much more will stop the finger hurting… if we succeed, we do so because they have maintained their faith in us against apparently contrary evidence.

Now to accept the Christian propositions is ipso facto to believe that we are to God, always, as that dog or child … was to us, only very much more so.  From this it is a strictly logical conclusion that the behaviour which was appropriate to them will be appropriate to us, only very much more so.

If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that His operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give Him our confidence in spite of this.[2]

Faith (or trust) is “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Perhaps our desire to understand the point of the trial is not realistic.

Unconditional Trust

Plus, James adds no condition to the command to “Consider it all joy….”  What if we cannot see a purpose that we consider sufficient to justify the pain we are experiencing?  Are we prepared to (even unconsciously) say, “I will consider it all joy once I understand enough to be convinced.”  As the apostle Paul responded to unthinkable suggestions, μὴ γένοιτο (mē genoito), “May it never be!”[3]

Instead, the wisdom James recommends relates to our trust in God.  Can we trust Him when His Word describes the connections from trials to “lacking in nothing”?  Do we believe the process James describes:

• • Trials are the instruments of refining our faith.
    • The refining process proves the genuineness of our faith.
      • The proven genuineness of our faith stimulates endurance.
        • Endurance (and further refining) results in growing maturity.
          • Maturity brings joy and fullness and satisfaction in God alone.

A member of our group pointed out the “feedback loop” nature of that process.  Growing trust in God’s loving, wise, and sovereign hand in our circumstances enables endurance through future trials.  Those trials further refine and prove our faith, spiritually forming us.  God’s goodness and trustworthiness become even more clear as we mature in Him, increasing our trust.

The nature of a feedback loop is that each iteration or cycle reinforces and strengthens the whole process.  Trusting that God is using that process to draw us near to Him (Hebrews 4:16, 7:25, 10:22, 11:6) is the motivation for our joy.  That trust gives a settled sense of well-being even in hardships, difficulties, and suffering.

Trusting Together

James did not write “Consider it all joy…” to individuals.  He explicitly addressed that startling opening command to the community he cared about, “my brothers.”  The use of that phrase is an important reminder for us.  We tend to read with Western, individualistic eyes.  But James must have known that “Consider it all joy…” is only possible in a close supportive fellowship.

As a member of our group emphasized, we need to “train ourselves” to respond with joy (a settled sense of well-being) to our circumstances.  We constantly need to remind each other of God’s good intentions, to refine us “to become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29), “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

We can help each other before a trial comes by reinforcing that mindset of joyful trust as a community.  “Consider it all joy…” can sound very hollow and uncaring unless we have helped each other build a habit of such a settled sense of well-being.

“The time spent practicing gratitude is like practicing free throws: It allows you to respond, in the pressure of the game, in a way you don’t even have to think about. It becomes second nature.”^[4]

What is true of gratitude (and free throws) is true of joy.  “Second-nature” joy does not happen without practice, and practicing together is more effective.

A key part of the practice of joy is building trust in the only Source of that joy.  In our individual study and in our corporate conversations we can continually emphasize the trustworthy character of God.  Our circumstances will be easier to face as we continue to grow in confidence that

• • God, in His love, always wills what is best for us.
  • In His wisdom, He always knows what is best, and in
  • His sovereignty, He has the power to bring it about.^[5]

That clarity about God’s character is crucial.

“What if having the right ideas about who God really is would give us a sense of well-being that could go with us anywhere and through absolutely anything?”[6]

When we are faced with trials, hardships, difficulties, suffering –  the obstacle to “Consider it all joy…” may be the question we ask.  “Why is this happening?” or even “What am I supposed to learn from this?” may not be the right questions.  Instead, we can encourage each other to ask, “Have I learned to trust the character of God, through everything?”[7]

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[1] Chris A. Vlachos, James, Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament (EGGNT)  (Nashville:  B&H Academic, 2013), 24.  “First-class condition introduced by εἰ followed by an imperative.”

[2] C. S. Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief” in The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (San Francisco:  HarperOne, 2017), Kindle edition pp. 22-26.

[3] Romans 3:4, 6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11.

[4] Brant Hansen, Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let’s Dance.: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2024), Kindle Edition, location 1377, page 107.

[5] Jerry Bridges, You Can Trust God (Colorado Springs:  NavPress, 1989), 6, emphasis added.

[6] Brant Hansen, Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let’s Dance.: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2024), Kindle Edition, location 510, page 27.

[7] Brant Hansen, Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let’s Dance.: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2024), Kindle Edition, location 1556, page 122.