“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,
whenever you face trials of many kinds,
because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Let perseverance finish its work
so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4.
I have spent too much time ranting at God for allowing bad things to happen, equating my happiness with His love, and feeling rejected by Him whenever He has allowed me to suffer. It has recently been occurring to me that the main priority of my life has been my own happiness.
I was only willing to accept from God those things that I considered “good”, but resented those things that I considered “bad”. This has only prolonged my pain as I’ve continually worked to fix my problems rather than releasing them to God.
In my stubborn determination to be self sufficient, I had to become totally exhausted with my own efforts before I was finally ready to rely on God completely. I’m so grateful that God allowed my attempts to meet my own needs to fail or I would have continued to resort to them.
It’s not that I believe God wants me to suffer. It’s just that He knows this is the only way I’ll come to lean on Him. He’s not willing to allow my efforts at saving myself to work, and therefore, have me settle for anything less than His best for me. He wants to save me – all of us! From ourselves! Thankfully, God’s goals for me are so much greater than my mere comfort and pleasure.
In the midst of the turmoil of my life, as I’ve begun to understand God’s purposes for it, I’ve been learning to turn to Him and give Him my problems. In spite of the pain I’ve been feeling, there is relief in knowing that He is control and that He would use all these problems for my good. To wholly trust God, I must accept whatever He allows in my life.
Lately, I find myself frequently saying to God, “I hate this; it hurts so much; but I’m going to let You worry about it, because all my efforts have failed and it’s just too big for me.”
I guess this is what they call surrender. After a lifetime of trying to save myself (and my marriage, my family, etc, etc, etc), I have no steam left. So I stopped my desperate attempts to find a way out and started concentrating on just getting through one day at a time. When I put my awareness on God instead of my circumstances, I experience such relief.
I’m seeing these verses in James with new eyes. They have come alive for me as never before, and, while I may not enjoy it, I’m beginning to genuinely appreciate the pure joy of my pain.