Suffering and Joy

2 My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. 3 After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing. 5 But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask.

~ James 1:2-5

Let’s get technical for just one day, deal?

The logic of the passage goes like this: joy is a product of maturity which is a product of endurance which is a product of suffering. It’s important to take a step back and actually consider the logic because a too-quick reading suggests that suffering itself creates joy. Joy is the byproduct of hindsight, after many years of pursuing a certain way of seeing and, at last, gaining perspective. In other words, tests are occasions for joy in the sense that we know tests will lead to some kind of perspective, to wisdom. This is not the same thing as saying you’re happy about tests or suffering, it’s more like saying you hope and trust that there is more to come. Joy, then, is trusting that there is more to come.

The ability to flourish is intertwined with our ability to hope and trust that there is always more to come. God is not yet done.