My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. James 1:2-4
In these opening words of his letter, James is not encouraging us to be pleased when Satan tempts us to evil thoughts or actions, or if we fall under his temptations. Such things ought to be grievous to those striving after godliness, and in no way pleasant. What the inspired writer desires is that we make diligent effort to look at trying circumstances through a spiritual lens. For when we do so, there is cause for happiness in every obstacle.
But this the wandering children of Israel failed to do. At every call to exercise faith, they murmured. When there was no water, ‘the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?’ (Exodus 17:3). And when there was no food, they said, ‘Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots…for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger’ (Exodus 16:3).
Because of the Israelites’ incessant murmuring, their wanderings went on for forty long years. If, however, when a testing circumstance arose, they had reflected upon the mighty deliverances they had in the past and trusted in God, they would have ‘let patience have her perfect work’. The things that they stumbled at would have been the means of rendering them ‘perfect and entire, wanting [or lacking] nothing’ in respect to their fitness for the earthly Canaan. Yet of that land they proved themselves unworthy, and their ‘carcasses fell in the wilderness’ (Hebrews 3:17).
When obstacles arise in our march towards heavenly Canaan, or we are persecuted for our faith, we must not view such experiences with suspicion regarding God’s provision (as this will engender a spirit of murmuring against God). Rather, we should look for God’s hand in every testing circumstance. Our loving heavenly Father knows where we need improvement, and He brings on trials for our eternal good. When we lift our eyes off the temporal, we may unfeignedly ‘rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you’ (Matthew 5:12).
Christopher Sparks