Perfect, complete, lacking nothing

knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. – James 1v3-4

Okay, God tells us to rejoice in our trials with all joy. Sounds great and when we think about it spiritually it even makes sense. But it would be nice to know why, wouldn’t it?

The nice thing is that God tells us the reason for suffering. He doesn’t just tell us to do and then leave us hanging. He tells is that our trials produce patience and that our patience does a perfecting work that at the end of the day makes us perfect, complete, and wanting nothing.

We hear the saying ‘no pain, no gain’ and that is not totally out of place here. In seems to be a principle of life that nothing comes easy. Strength always comes through trials. Soldiers will attest to the truth as will athletes. Training produces strength and training is not easy.

Our little AJ is about to go through a trial. He is going to hate it. If, after the procedure on his eye he has any vision he will have to wear a patch on his good eye. I cannot imagine the frustration of having the eye you can see out of blocked to force you to use the bad eye. It will be hard on him, and everyone around him. But the purpose is to give that weak eye strength. It may never be perfect and complete, but it may be functional as a result of the testing.

Our trials never seem to be an occasion for joy at the moment, but they do help us to mature. They do make us strong and mature and perfect and complete. And, if we let them work, they will leave us lacking nothing in our maturity.