Testing Produces Endurance
“Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance,” James 1:2-3
It was a week of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, but it sure was a week of challenges. Tractors went down, bush hogs broke, and the remnants of Hurricane Ian kept showing up with more and bigger fallen trees across roads we’re just getting around to checking. Each day was a grind of challenges, but through it all, it was most interesting to watch Willie. I’d see another big tree in our way and make some comment like ‘man, another big one’, and Willie would just smile and grab a chainsaw and go to work. The tractor would break down and Willie would get focused and start problem solving. The bush hogs kept needing repairs and Willie just kept coming up with solutions, almost with a sense of enthusiasm as he saw the problem and explained how he could get it fixed. I never once saw frustration in Willie; in fact, it was the opposite. He stayed focused, patient, and almost enthusiastic through it all. In the words of Willie, if you asked him about his toughness and endurance, he’d tell you “we didn’t just grow up, we worked up”.
All this made me think of James 1:2-3, and the perfect illustration Willie gave me. “Consider it all joy… knowing that the testing produces endurance…” The word ‘endurance’ in this passage is also translated steadfastness, perseverance, and patience, and it means ‘remaining under’ the trials of life. As Matthew Henry says, “Christianity teaches men to be joyful under troubles: such exercises are sent from God's love; and trials in the way of duty will brighten our graces now, and our crown at last. Let us take care, in times of trial, that patience, and not passion, is set to work in us: whatever is said or done, let patience have the saying and doing of it.
….We should not pray so much for the removal of affliction, as for wisdom to make a right use of it.”
13 years into my journey of faith, I’m still amazed at how little patience and endurance I have in certain circumstances. By God’s grace I continue to overcome and press on, and no doubt endurance has grown greatly, but I sure fall woefully short at times. It’s good to take a spiritual inventory, which can be disheartening at times, but we don’t dwell there; rather, we are to be “forgetting what lies behind, and pressing on…’ (Phil 3:13), and trusting in the promise that ‘He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…(Phil 1:6). Thank God His love is too great to leave us where we are.
Thankful for life lessons on the farm, and for the blessing of friendship with someone as cool as Willie (and Punchie too!). Lord, help me to continue to grow in endurance and wisdom for Your glory.
