Counting It All Joy
Why is it so hard to obey the command that James gives us to, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds?” John tells us in 1 John 5 that God’s commandments are not burdensome. This one can feel like it is.
It appears that we are in times of trial on many levels right now. From rising inflation and perverse topics being taught in public schools on the home front, to an international crisis happening before our eyes in Ukraine. These things test our personal faith and our national faith (no evidence of that yet).
There is one man (remaining nameless) with a social media presence who is definitely seeing the goodness of the Lord in our current circumstances. He believes that starting through the lockdowns and other mandates that the Lord is purifying His Church. We are seeing where the truly faithful people are abiding.
James goes on to say that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. This is faithfulness. The trials we are in are building in us the ability to remain faithful, when we respond in faith, according to the Word of God. When we face the trial head on we will see the faithfulness of God and we are trained to stay more faithful to Him.
These are days when it is hard to question that God is judging our nation which brings the trials we are facing. We have allowed so much sin into our “laws” that it is time to examine what our response should be (or should have been).
Will we speak the truth about “abortion” being murder? Even in our own spheres of influence, too many of us have been quiet on this issue and many churches rarely teach how we should be responding. There is too much innocent blood shed on our land. God has been patient but it is time to act.
Will we teach our children to stand up for God’s Word regardless of the earthly consequences? There was a poll by Barna Group this week that reported that “Shockingly few parents intentionally speak to their children about beliefs and behavior based upon a biblical worldview.”[i] This is not the kind of parenting that will find favor with God.
If we continue to remain silent about “sex education,” LGBT+ “marriages,” critical race theory, and, the new teaching I read this week that when we use English to communicate, “We are fundamentally bound by the politics of racism, patriarchy, sexism, capitalism, and colonization buried within the English language,” [ii] we can expect more judgment and not relief from the current downward moral spiral in our culture.
This is a trial for me to figure out who to speak to who has any influence to reverse that downward spiral.
One of the things that seems to be worthy of “counting all joy” with my long distance un-named friend is that these things are being exposed publicly. Abortion “Abolitionists” are rising all over the nation and demanding that children “be saved from the slaughter” (Proverbs 24:11). The lockdowns in the last two years have opened the closed curtains on what is being promoted and taught to the next generation in public schools. Thankfully, many parents are seeing the evil and standing firmly against it.
Though having Christian eyes opened to the truth of what is happening is a positive thing, it is only “good” if we are go a little farther in the book of James and recognize that our faith without works is dead.
Will we count it all joy that the work that needs to be done is apparent and our joy is going to be in doing it?
[i] [i](https://www.christendom.press/church/poll-majority-of-us-parents-do-not-believe-bible-is-gods-word-shockingly-few-share-biblical-worldview-with-children/).
[ii] https://rethinkingschools.org/books/rethinking-ethnic-studies/