Have you ever been asked to rate a service experience in a survey? I was on the phone trying to sort out car insurance when, at the end, I was asked to stay on the line to rate the experience. They asked me: “Have we been helpful? Has your issue been resolved? How likely are you to recommend our service to a friend?” I wonder: What sort of rating would you give God if you were asked these questions?
The New Testament letter of James is written to a group of people who are suffering. Following Jesus had caused them a lot of hardship. Just as Jesus was persecuted and killed, his followers in the first century now face the same fate. How do you think they would rate God in their life? Has he been helpful? Has he resolved their issues? Their rating would most probably be a one-star review. So, in their suffering, what has James got to say to them? Well, in verse two of chapter 1, he writes:
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds…
That is a very strange thing to write to someone who is suffering. Imagine if your friend was going through a tough time and you were to text them, “Consider it pure joy.” Well, it is only strange if comfort and ease are your ultimate goal. If comfort and ease are the things that you want more than anything else, then when pain and suffering come, life is stripped of its meaning. But what if there is something greater than comfort and ease? What if there is something that pain and suffering can achieve? Like doing weights in the gym—the struggle and the pain of the weights achieve a greater good. James continues:
3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
We can give God a one-star rating when we experience pain and suffering. We can think that God is absent or that he has failed in his duty. However, that is a misunderstanding about his role in our lives. James wants us to see that God is up to something far greater. God’s desire is that we would be “mature and complete,” and it seems that it takes “trials of many kinds” to achieve this desire. We can wish all the hard things away, but then we will never be mature and complete. Our hearts can be so stubborn that it takes all kinds of trials for them to find their true home and comfort under the lordship of Jesus.