My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, - James 1v2

‘All joy’ hardly describes the normal reaction to testing and trials. Instead of all joy words like panic, despair, fear, worry, anxiety, and fretfulness come to mind. When a trial comes we often get that awful feeling in the pit of stomachs, followed by a kind of breathlessness. Then we are all consumed with the trial and cannot get anything accomplished.

This week we got news that our grandson AJ has serious issues with his right eye. He may never have vision in that eye. When Jay first rang my thoughts were not ‘all joy.’ I got that awful gut feeling. I really don’t think there is a problem with our initial response - love, compassion, and concern are going to produce that kind of result. At that point we have a choice to make. Will we continue with the fear, despair, and anxiety or will we make another choice?

This is the point where we need to account the trial as all joy. We choose to consider the trial in a different way. We make the choice to account this trial as an occasion for joy instead of despair. We choose to see the situation from God’s perspective instead of our.

We don’t know yet if AJ is going to be able to see out his right eye. What do we do? Will our worrying, fretting, and anxiety help? Well, no. If we patiently wait to see how God is going to use it and in the meantime we worship, serve, and love Him we can begin the process of counting it as all joy.