Count It Joy When Trouble Comes

Have you ever stopped to think about what God has done for you? Just stopped. Not a planned devotional time. Just stopped. That moment is the best use of your time, and most of us never take it.

We live busy lives, filling our days with tasks and social obligations, rushing from one thing to the next. And in all that rushing, it's easy to forget the Creator who gives us both physical breath and spiritual life.

I am grateful for my life, yet plans fail. We face distressing situations we would rather avoid. Shocking news shakes us, and it hits hardest when it involves people close to us, because these aren't strangers on the street. They are our relatives.

So how does this connect to God's providence? A crisis hits, and you might ask: Where is God in this? Why did He allow this to happen? Our default is to question God instead of worshiping Him.

Bringing your hard questions to God is part of what faith looks like. He invites your grief. He invites your exhaustion. Only God has the answers, and only He can heal a broken heart. We come to Him drained, troubled, perplexed, depressed, and just when we think things can't get worse, they do.

Then we read James 1:2. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds." That command feels unrealistic. Does Scripture really expect us to work up happy feelings in the middle of a disaster? Living this out is hard, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't suffered much.

God uses trials to sanctify us. We’d prefer easier methods of instruction, but we learn more about God's character during suffering than during periods of ease. That's no accident.

Difficulty drives us to God. We tend to forget Him when life runs smoothly. We credit our success to our own intelligence or goodness. Easy times rarely produce spiritual growth, since they cost us nothing, and we only value what costs us something. Buying with cash lets you watch the money actually leave your hand. A credit card hides that cost until the bill arrives. Painless seasons can stunt us spiritually the same way, when we fail to acknowledge our total dependence on God's grace.

Peter picks up this theme in 1 Peter 1:6. "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials." He's writing to Christians facing real persecution across what is now Turkey, and he knows exactly what he's asking of them.

Notice what he says you're rejoicing in. Look back at verse 3, where he begins: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." That's the object of your rejoicing: the God who raised Christ from the dead, the God who has given you a living hope.

Peter adds something important next: "though now for a little while, if necessary." Temporary. Not your final address. And "if necessary" means these aren't random accidents. God ordains them.

What's that purpose? He tells us in verse 7. Your faith, tested by fire like gold, will result in praise and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Faith gets purified through trials. Your faithfulness in the dark will be vindicated in the light when Christ returns.

Here's what he's actually saying: you don't rejoice because the suffering feels good. You rejoice because you know who holds the trial in His hand. You give thanks to God, who is using this for your good. However unbearable this season feels right now, it's temporary.

There's one more thing Peter adds that matters. He says you "have been grieved by various trials." He isn't denying your grief or calling you to pretend the hurt isn't real. Your sorrow is legitimate. What he's calling you to do is let that grief sit alongside your rejoicing in God. Neither one cancels out the other.

You can be in genuine, deep sorrow over a family crisis and still trust God's sovereignty. You can be hurting and rejoicing at the same time, not instead of sorrow but alongside it.

So what do we rejoice in? The sovereign God who ordains the events in our lives for our ultimate good. We rest in the resurrection which guarantees our living hope.

If you're in the middle of a trial and you don't feel like rejoicing, that isn't a failure of faith. Peter knew exactly what suffering felt like. You may be nowhere near rejoicing yet, but you can look toward it. You can believe it's true even when your emotions haven't caught up. Ask God to help you see His hand in what you're going through. Slowly, your faith in Him can begin to take root even while the hurt is still fresh.

It isn't the same as being fixed. It isn't the same as the pain disappearing. It's beginning to see, through the tears, that God hasn't abandoned you. He's refining you. One day, when this season ends, you'll see clearly what He was doing all along.