Enduring
the Twists of Life
James 1: 2-4, 12, Matthew
24: 11-13
How do you feel about trials? How do
you feel about perseverance? Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? I know about
trials. That was a big part of my job for many years. I represented people at
trial. In our legal system, trials are the last resort. Many attempts are made
to stay out of court. There are arbitration and mediation. There are pre-trial
discovery tools designed in part to reveal the weakness of a case in order to
settle it. Even when one gets to the courtroom prepared for trial, there are
usually last minute attempts to settle out of court. Why? Because trials take a
lot of time just to get to trial. Trials are tricky. Trials are expensive. And
you can’t predict the outcome with any great degree of reliability.
“Count it joy when you meet trials.” That’s the way the book of James
begins. That’s verse 2. Ten verses later, James says something very similar. “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast
under trial.” James must be just a little bit weird. Count it joy! Consider
yourself blessed! That’s hardly what all my clients said over the years. What
is joyous--what is blessed--about trials? Even though James isn’t talking about
courtroom trials, but rather the trials of life, it still seems strange to
think of such things as a reason for joy.
You fall in love and get married.
Some time goes by and before you know it, before you really planned for it,
there is a baby on the way. One of my daughters has managed to have two
children the last four years on two different islands, and now they are in
their third home in five years on yet another duty assignment. She didn’t plan
it that way. That’s one of those trials of life. Of course, there is joy and
blessing involved, but sometimes in life, there is such a thing as getting a
little too much to process, even if its joy.
Half of American marriages end in
divorce. We don’t plan it that way. Approximately one in five adults in America
experiences mental illness in a given year. We don’t plan it that way, but
there it is. Life comes at you in a thousand different ways, from not enough
money to not enough time. We have many resources here in America, and yet we
all seem at one time or another under trial of some sort. We don’t realize how good we have it. Ask
anyone living in Houston or the Florida Keys or Puerto Rico right now about
trials. People are waiting in line for twelve hours to get enough gas to use
their generator for a couple days, and they are the lucky ones. On an island
without electricity, someone with a generator is considered lucky. Consider it
pure joy when trials come your way? That would be a hard sell in those areas
right now. Many areas cannot be reached even a week after the storm. You can’t
call for help when the cell phone tower is on the ground and the cell phone
can’t be charged for lack of electricity. You can’t walk out when the roads are
blocked with mud and felled trees. You just have to wait.
And yet, James would have us
celebrate. What were some of the trials that the people of James’ time might
have experienced? Certainly there was poverty. James’ letter is filled with
references to such situations. James 2 refers to religious persecution. The
rich were dragging the poor into court, apparently blaspheming Christians for
being Christians. Chapter 5 talks about the rich withholding wages from those
who were thought righteous. Why? Because they were righteous. These were not
times when it was popular, or even safe, to be a Christian. And James also more
generically just talks about trials of many kinds. He is casting his net wide enough
to include the varied kinds of suffering we all encounter, from sickness and
loneliness and disappointment to sadness.
What James is talking about is two
different forms of trials. In verse 2, he talks about people who have to
undergo trials, who have to be tested, all as part of a refinement process
which must be endured in order to become pure. It is, literally, the
purification of a faith which is already there but needs strengthening. For
these tests from God, we are to count them as joy that he refines us. But in
verse 12, James is talking about a different kind of trial. Here, James calls
those of us who persevere in faith blessed;
we are to receive the crown of life.
First, we gained perseverance. In this instance, James reminds us that such
perseverance has a payoff. We will be blessed. We will be rewarded with the
crown of life.
So some trials are tests of faith,
while others are just plain endurance tests. Remember the story of Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden? The serpent, the craftiest of all God’s creatures,
appears to Adam and Eve. He weaves a tale of deception and lies about the tree
of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve are enchanted by the serpent’s
statements and decide to take a bite of the poison fruit. God, upon finding
out, curses the serpent. Interestingly, he causes the serpent to go forth on his belly, to literally eat dust. He makes the serpent cursed
above all other beasts. If such is the punishment, can we not infer that before
God’s curse, the serpent may have been attractive, may have walked upright? If
not, then why would God’s curse refer to going forth on his belly?
When I think of a snake, any snake, I
try to change my thought. For me to think of a snake is to think of something
ugly and sinister and scary, something that slithers up out of nowhere and
catches me unawares. I don’t like snakes. My apologies to all the biologists in
the audience who can certainly tell me the benefits of this creature. I just
have an aversion to them. Perhaps it comes from this scene in the garden, where
the Bible depicts that which lies, that which deceives, that which would hurt
us, as a serpent.
In his wonderful book, The Book of Mysteries,[1]
Jonathan Cahn includes a story about snakes. The teacher reminds the student
that snakes are cold-blooded. The scientific result of that is that they are
limited in their ability to endure. We humans are warm-blooded. That means,
among other things, that we can run and keep running. Snakes can’t do that.
They can’t keep going. That means that we can outlast them. We can get away if
we see the snake. Even if it comes for us, we can outlast it. We have more
endurance. In the same way, enduring faith trumps evil.
So the Scriptures portray the serpent
as an agent of evil, not because it is inherently evil, but because snakes
generally move by twisting. That may be why snakes are such a good
representation of evil. What is evil but good perverted? God made everything on
earth, every rock, every creature. God made everything good. So how did things
become evil? Good things became twisted. How do people end up at war with one
another? Their communication becomes twisted. How does the truth become a lie?
It becomes twisted. When we pervert the truth, when we distort the purity of
God’s message, it twists and morphs until, like the serpent, it has taken
something good and made it evil.
The symbol of the serpent as an agent
of evil is powerful. But the image for perseverance is even more powerful. The
teacher in Cahn’s book says this: “Evil
is cold-blooded. What that means is this: Though evil may have its day, its
victories, it’s time to move and strike—it remains cold-blooded. Therefore, it
can never endure…So, in the end, the good will always outlast the evil.
Therefore, persevere in the good…you will overcome and prevail in the end.” Jesus
himself was tried in the desert at the beginning of his ministry. The devil
came at him quoting, and distorting Scripture. Jesus held his ground, endured
the trial, used Scripture to explain Scripture—and prevailed. Evil could not
endure the warm-blooded love of Christ.
One more thing might be added. Never
has God asked us to do this alone. He does not mean for us to go it alone. The
Holy Spirit abides in us. Jesus the Son goes before us. God awaits our
perseverance, for which we receive his blessing… a crown of life. Perseverance is tough. Trials come in many forms and
come over and over. We are not likely to avoid trials in this life. What we can
count on is that our faith will help us persevere—and that perseverance will
bring us blessings that far outweigh the trials.
Count it all joy.
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