"The Value of Trials and Temptation," especially, "Perseverance in Trial"
1. A word or phrase that attracts me: "Consider it all joy...when you encounter various trials" (vs. 2); "a wave of the sea" (vs. 6); "all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." (vs. 17a); and, "He willed to give us birth by the word of truth" (vs. 18a)
2. What I see or hear the Lord showing or telling me: I don't need to be afraid of the storms in my life, because God is in the storms, directing them for my good. "Consider it all joy...when you encounter various trials." I love how God knows what is best for my soul. I need to have various trials to perfect my soul in love. Because my love is not perfect yet, and I'm still woefully learning how to be like Jesus, I need God to show me where I am lacking, and embrace His grace, while He painfully, but lovingly, purifies my soul. It is a joy to be so loved by God, that He is willing to take such careful measures now, to mold me through my trials, so that later my soul will be ready, full of love, perfected by God, to enter in that holy union with Him, of which my soul yearns for, and God calls me to.
"a wave of the sea." I have encountered this wave before. It was a wave of paralyzing fear that overwhelmed and washed over my soul. But I have learned that God is in those deep waters, and His perfect love casts out my fears. (1 John 4:18) It is OK to be a tiny pearl in a tiny clam shell in the sandy bottom of a very deep ocean, hidden in the dark. Psalm 139:12 says, "Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one." You know, that I am there, Lord, and You are with me.
"all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." I was driving from my aunt and uncle's home to my daughter's dorm room in Savannah, Georgia, to evacuate her ahead of Hurricane Irma. I was thinking about a conversation I had with my spiritual director before driving to Georgia. I said that it was so humbling to know that nothing good comes from me, that everything good comes from Jesus and Mary, and that they are already perfect in love.
When I say things like that, the response is always something like, "but God created you out of the goodness of His Heart!" It reminds me of Genesis 1:31a, after God created Adam and Eve, "God looked at everything He had made, and he found it very good." I realized that I needed to see myself through God's eyes of love, and not to cling so much to my own understanding. The Father of lights above is the author of, "all good giving and every perfect gift." Maybe, just maybe, God gives and sees love and goodness in my soul, that He is perfecting there. And since, "He willed to give us birth by the word of truth," my soul rejoices in being created by the very breath of God, in all His Holiness, Goodness, Righteousness, and Love!
3. What the Lord is asking me to be or to do today, this week, or forever! ...to cherish being His daughter, and to know His awesome love for me.
James 1:
Perseverance in Trial.
2
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials,
3
for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
4
And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5
But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it.
6
But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.
7
For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord,
8
since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.
9
The brother in lowly circumstances should take pride in his high standing,
10
and the rich one in his lowliness, for he will pass away “like the flower of the field.”
11
For the sun comes up with its scorching heat and dries up the grass, its flower droops, and the beauty of its appearance vanishes. So will the rich person fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
Temptation.
12
Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life that he promised to those who love him.
13
No one experiencing temptation should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one.
14
Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
15
Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.
16
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers:
17
all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.
18
He willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
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