How can I find joy in the midst of trials?

It is the counterpart of our Lord's beatitudes in Matthew 5. For the blessed in His eyes and mouth are, not only of no account in the world, but sufferers from it for righteousness' sake, and for Christ's, poor in spirit, meek, mourners, hungerers after righteousness, merciful, and more. They are called to rejoice and exult, for great is their reward in heaven. So here, "count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into various temptations." In this world of sin and ruin, God not only works in grace but carries on a discipline of souls, and turns trials of all sorts into an occasion of blessing for all that own Him and seek His guidance. Selfwill hardens itself against each trial, or yields to discouragement and even despair. Faith recognises the love that never changes, and judges the self that resists His will or despises His word; and, as faith bows submissively, it reaps profit, and grows by the knowledge of Him.

Hence is the believer entitled and emboldened to think it every sort of joy whensoever he falls into varied trials, as indeed they may be of all kinds. It is not that Christians are exempt from sorrow — far from it, or that we should not feel the sorrow, any more than forget God's grace. Thus the trial throws us back on Him without Whom not a sparrow falls on the ground and by Whom the very hairs of our head are all numbered. Affliction comes not forth of the dust, nor does trouble spring out of the ground. All is under His hand Who has made us His for glory, and meanwhile puts our faith to the test in this present evil age, habituating us not only to patience but to endurance.

The end in view, that we may be "perfect and entire, wanting nothing" is certainly most desirable. Keeping it in view we shall be able to rejoice in some measure. James however is not satisfied with a measure of rejoicing: he says, "Count it ALL joy." It would indeed be no inconsiderable thing if we could count it fifty per cent. joy, but we are exhorted to count it one hundred per cent joy! A counsel of perfection truly! But then the faith of Christ always does set perfection before us.

We have only to read the very first remark he makes to be greatly humbled. "My brethren," he says, "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. The temptations of which he speaks are the things that try us and put us to proof. They may of course take the form of enticements springing from our own lusts, as verse 14 indicates; but on the other hand they may not. God never entices us but He does permit, and even send, many testings from without, thus working "the trying of your faith;" that is, the putting of faith to the test. Everything that is of value has to be tested, and God sets a great value on faith.

The Jewish Christians were tried and persecuted. Peter also speaks of this in his epistle, encouraging them to suffer with patience. James exhorts them, as Paul also had done in Romans 5, to esteem persecution as all joy, and for the same reason that Paul had given. The trial of faith works patience; the will of man is broken; he has to wait for the operation of God; he feels his dependence on God, and that he lives in a scene where God alone can produce the result desired, overcoming and arresting the power of Satan. Often we may wish when occupied with good, that the work should be hastened, that difficulties should disappear, and that we should be freed from persecution; but the will of God - not ours - is good and wise: the works that are done upon the earth, He does them Himself Patience is the perfect fruit of obedience.

Rom. 5:3. "We boast (or rejoice) in tribulations also." The ways of God towards us during the crossing of the wilderness are designed to mortify the flesh, to break the man, and thereby to form us for the knowledge of God. The flesh is a veil which hides heavenly things from us. God acts in our interest, as to this veil, and afterwards we see better throughout. In this verse 3 it is in view of the subjective fruit, which results from the tribulation that we boast. In Rom. 5:11 we boast in view of the objective blessing — we joy or boast in God. By objective blessing is meant the blessing which specially belongs to faith, as the knowledge of God, His work of grace accomplished outside us in Christ, etc. Subjective blessing is said of the effects of grace produced in us.

Do you know the glory of God to be your portion, rejoicing in the hope of it? Do you see the bright light shining in the distance? The things we meet with on the road may be trying: Jacob's head lay on a stone pillow whilst he was enjoying the heavenly vision. The deep sands and sharp stones may make the wilderness road very uncomfortable to walk along, but God uses it for the breaking away of all that will not do for the glory; and by it is teaching me the patience of Christ, and putting that part of God's character before my soul. Is it long, this waiting-time? but will any who are weary now make a murmur when standing in the glory, at the length of the way they had to pass? We should even glory in tribulation because it works patience. (Rom. 5:3.) Patience is not indifference. A patient man takes all that tries him and bears it in the presence of God; and in the presence of God he finds the Spirit of God shedding abroad in. his heart the love of God. (Rom. 5:5.)

123 But some other points come out as to the state of the soul meanwhile. The trouble had cast the soul on God. And though to us all such things as vows are wrong, yet the reference of the heart to Him, the turning of it to Him as the source of hope in a better way, though under chastisement, is just what hoping in Him produces. Have confidence in, and wait on, Him when tried, and chastened; till the will is broken, we cannot; when it is, we can, though conscious the sorrow is the fruit of our fault. This supposes integrity; it issues in thanksgiving. The heart can then too bear testimony for God to others; it has known what He has been for itself. It cried and He heard. This, says the apostle, is the confidence we have in Him. For what is here learnt through sorrow should be the constant state of the soul without it. Still the governing feeling of the soul is its own thankfulness, and so it will be. It will turn back to that, that is, to God - to the secret of its own thankfulness to Him, which is the joy of the heart. The force of the psalm is recognising all this after deliverance; but what it produces when received into the heart is answering faith when the trouble is there.

Do we believe that, with the innumerable throng of the redeemed, we shall soon sing the everlasting anthem of praise to the Lamb? It is astonishing the simplicity of heart there is when we believe that "we are on our way to God." Whenever the soul has really got hold of this, believing in God, knowing His love, that He has brought us out of Egypt, and that we are on our way to Canaan, there is a spring of heart that surmounts everything. There may be a great many things by the way to exercise our hearts and thoughts; but if this feeling predominates, they only come in by the way. If my mind be fixed on present circumstances and present difficulties, and on God's helping me in them, there will not at all be the same spring of joy. For then I make God to be simply the servant of my necessities. The heart rests and centres there, and God sinks down into a mere help in time of trouble. It is quite true that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble" (Ps. 46:1); but to bring Him down to be only this changes the whole aspect of things. Himself, as our portion, is infallibly ours. If our hearts are fixed on being with Jesus in His rest and glory, on being in the "Father's house," our own present difficulties have the character of difficulties by the way; we can then rise over trouble, however felt. And our thoughts about God are not merely that He will help us in the circumstances in which we are - our hearts being fixed on Him, we live in the freedom that arises from the constant certainty that all that is Christ's is ours. It is important for us to have our minds fixed on the hope of glory which is set before us.

This is a very important point. For there is a great tendency, in the first joy of faith and fervour of feeling, to be occupied with the joy and with the feeling; and when afterwards trials and exercises of heart and conscience have to be passed through, to be occupied with them, or with what will give present deliverance and help, and to forget the bright and blessed hope laid up for us in heaven - the place of rest and glory with Himself, which Jesus is gone to prepare. But how can I journey on to Canaan through the trials and exercises of the wilderness if my heart has lost the sense of the blessedness of the Canaan I am going to? We are redeemed, not for the wilderness, but for Canaan; we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And when the glory of God is indeed our joy, we can add, "Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also." For then we know and experience that these very tribulations are all made to work for our good, and to further us on our way. For "tribulation worketh patience." It free us from the restlessness of our own will, which would turn aside, and delivers us, besides, from the fear of what man can do to us. We learn to trust in God. We learn, moreover, how little we can be the authors of our own blessing, and we count more and more on the constant watchfulness and love, and care of a Father in heaven. His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. We know that we are in these tribulations because the objects of His love, the ransomed ones of His grace from the fire that shall never be quenched. And then, besides, we are on our way to God. Thus having the end in view enables us to confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and it brightens with hope every step of the way. Otherwise we get weary, becoming faint in our minds. But if living in the midst of things that are unseen and eternal, the inward man is renewed day by day, and that, too, at the very time that the outward world is perishing and falling into decay.

The world knows and admires that attitude of mind which is expressed by the saying, "Grin and bear it." We commend the man who faces adversity with cheerfulness, though his cheerfulness is only based on a species of fatalism and a refusal to look ahead beyond the day. The believer, who has grown in the knowledge of God and is strengthened, may be plunged into suffering, and instead of being consumed with desire to get out of it he endures with long-suffering, instead of grumbling at the Divine ways he not only acquiesces but is joyful. Joyful, be it noted, and not merely cheerful. His joy flows on like still waters that run deep. But then the power for this is according to the might of His glory. That glory exists today, and very shortly it is coming into display, so even now it is possible for us to "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Read 1 Peter 1:6-9, for it illustrates our subject.