Promise:
God believes in you.
Passage:
James is believed to be the brother of Jesus and a leader in the Jerusalem church. His letter to Jewish Christians who were facing persecution is inherently practical. He begins his letter with a reiteration of the core message of this Seek First book and that is that God is preparing you for the place he has prepared for you.
James 1:2-4, 12
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
Writing to others under persecution, Paul echoed similar themes in Romans:
Romans 5:3-5
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
In his now famous talk and book entitled “The Last Lecture,” Randy Pasch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who was facing terminal cancer, talked about being coached in football. He would be pushed, prodded, and yelled at regularly. In other words, he faced trials of many kinds. He then shared what his coach told him: “When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, they've given up on you.” He was only facing scrutiny because the coach cared enough to provide him feedback and shape him into the player he believed he could be. If he didn’t believe in the potential, the coach wouldn’t have bothered.
Perhaps spiritual forces work in the same way in our lives. Whether the trials were brought on or allowed by God (good, smart people disagree on what God causes or allows, so I’ll let you study this on your own), the challenges are the forces of Satan opposing the good in us (like the example of Job illustrated so well), or the result of our own sin and disobedience, these circumstances are shaping us. And perhaps if God cares enough to try to develop us (or in the devil’s case, a life that is such a threat that it needs to be thrown off track), we should consider it pure joy. God believes in us and wants to see us succeed in and through Him.
Your job search is shaping you. Like a trial of a new cure in a lab, your faith is being refined through experimentation and testing. It can be developing your perseverance and your resilience. It can develop your character and hope as a stronger testimony and encouragement to others.
Practice:
Use the space below to change the passages above into a math formula or scientific equation. Of course, there is no formula or simple equation that sums up a lifetime of maturing faith, but it could be useful for you to meditate on the elements of that maturity, as outlined above, in the form of a formula. If the result to the right of the equal sign is the “crown of life” or “maturity and completeness,” then what comes to the left of the equal sign? What are the things that contribute together to create the faithful follower we have been called to be?
Pause:
Reflect on the formula you wrote. What is the hardest part of this equation for you to believe right now? How can you reconcile the idea of trials being “pure joy” based on how you previously defined both of these terms? How does the idea that God believes in you change your definitions?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________