Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. —James 1:2–4
Given a choice, I think I’d prefer smooth sailing over rough seas, easy streets over congested parkways, and chilling out over hot and sweaty. Wouldn’t life without pain, racing without resistance, and success without a hitch be everyone’s dream?
The apostle James didn’t see it that way: “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials” (v. 2). Great joy and trials? Now here are two concepts that don’t seem like they ought to fit in the same sentence.
Having framed many walls during my years of construction work, I have always made certain that I have my sixteen-pound sledgehammer close by, as well as my level. I lay the two-by-fours down on the deck, making sure they’re relatively straight. I look down the edge of each one to see the crowns. Are they all going in the same direction? (Almost every milled piece of lumber has an arc running from top to bottom, the crown.) Then I nail the wall together.
Once I stand the framed wall in place, I do my best to make sure it’s square with the other walls and perfectly vertical with the bubble on the level exactly in the middle. I bring my sledgehammer along because at moments like these it’s the best thing available to encourage the walls to be exact. In fact, our children will tell you that I named my sledgehammer “The Encourager.”
Unfortunately, this equipment is noisy to use. Given a choice, I’d rather have a Chopin concerto playing in the background than have all that banging and racket. But I also used to hang wallpaper back when my late wife and I were youth group leaders and needed a few extra dollars, so I know intimately the value of making a wall straight and true. So, noisy though it might be to get those walls perfect, I’d prefer disruptive and straight to serene and crooked.
Although James probably never hung a pretty Waverly stripe in anyone’s foyer, I am confident he’d agree with this conversation about sledgehammers and precise walls. “The goal,” he would have said, is to be “mature and complete, lacking nothing.” And the way to achieve this lofty goal is to pay the price of perseverance—living life with steadfast determination and resolve, persistence, and tenacity. And the way to earn all these admirable qualities is to “experience various trials” (v. 2)—the sledge- hammers of failure, frustration, sickness, loss, and defeat.
Have you ever seen an artist’s rendering of a building that’s not been built? Sometimes you see them hanging in the lobbies of large corporations: “Our Company’s Dream for the Future” might be written under the painting. Now imagine that the work has begun on this new building. A smart general contractor would have copies made of that artist’s rendering posted around the construction site. “Work with this goal in mind,” he might tell his crew. “All this hard work might be a little more meaningful if we have a picture of what we’re building for you to clearly see.”
Similarly, experiencing “great joy” while facing “various trials” is only possible with an artist’s rendering of “mature and complete” close by. And the sledgehammer isn’t as annoying and intrusive if you keep that great-looking wallpaper someone’s going to hang in mind.
This brings a whole new meaning to the expression “straight talk,” doesn’t it?