Consider it nothing but joy
when you fall into all sorts of trials.
                           —James 1:2

On its face, today’s text sounds loony. It’s a stretch to find anything joyful about trials.

James doesn’t encourage us to go looking for trials—he just tells us how we should respond to them when they show up, which they inevitably will.

And he tells us why: “The testing of your faith develops perseverance” (Jas 1:3). And perseverance, he says, is our finishing school, making us “mature, complete, not deficient in anything” (Jas 1:4).

Regarding run-ins with trials, Bible paraphraser J.B. Phillips wrote, “Don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends.”

That’s a tall order. But it has a generous payoff if your goal is to become “mature, complete, and not deficient in anything.”

We don’t choose what we go through,
but we can choose how we go through it.