Today's Daily Lesson comes from James chapter 1 verses 2 through 4:
2 My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, 3because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; 4and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
I read words like these and I'm honestly inclined to dismiss them as hackneyed and hallmarkish. "Consider it nothing but joy." All of it? For real?
But I'm less inclined to dismiss it because of who it comes from. James was Jesus' brother. He had faced his fair share of trials of many kinds. He knew suffering. He knew loss. He knew pain. Yet, he endured. And his own endurance gives credibility to his words.
James's words are not bromides. They aren't hallmark cards. They are the honest to goodness words of witness given from one sufferer to another.
"Hang in there," he's saying. "Consider it joy." Maybe not right now; but count it as joy for tomorrow.
For as the Psalmist says:
"Weeping lasts for the night,
But joy comes in the morning."
And James is saying, today's suffering will turn out to be tomorrow's joy.
Let's count it as such.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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