Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. 

-James 1:2-4 

 

I’m going to be real with you…James’ words used to trigger me.

Consider it a gift when I’m getting pummeled by life?

Consider it a gift when I feel like I can barely breathe because life keeps punching me in the gut?!

Consider it a gift when I face one trial after another and I’m feeling like I can’t catch a break?!

No, thank you.

I’ll take a hard pass on that one.

Until one day, the Holy Spirit took those words and gave me a revelation of what God wants His children to understand.

And I fell to my knees and submitted to the bigger plan — to allow these tests and challenges that come at me to reveal those inner truths of my heart — do I believe what I say I do?

Is my faith in what I can’t see or is it in my life going the way I want or thought it would?

Do I really trust God with my whole heart, or do I find my trust shaking when life does?

Am I willing to stand in the fires of life and allow the Holy Spirit to shape and purify me so that when the fire gets put out, I don’t even smell like smoke — I’ve become a mirror bearer of Christ?

Friend,

I don’t believe for one second that God creates the problems or the hardships — that’s the sin of the world and the schemes of the enemy’s department.

But God uses them.

I love the picture painted for us through the message version of James, “when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.”

When we get squeezed by life, what comes out of us?

Does it look like faith or fear?

Does it sound like defeat, or are we so anchored in Truth with our eyes fixed on Jesus that we’re unfazed because we know that our God is within us and our only goal is to shine Him through the storms of life?

I’m telling you, the only way to get to that place of rock-solid faith is to NOT get out of anything prematurely, but rather yield to the work of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to mold you and shape you until what comes out of you looks like your Father in Heaven.

This is the goal of every believer — to become like Him.

This is the freedom that Jesus paid for!

Could you even imagine walking through this life with a constant well of joy and peace regardless of what you’ve walked through?

You’re not wearing what you’ve been through or your circumstances anymore — you’re spiritually mature, well-developed — you’re wearing Christ!

And you’re not faking it either…the true transformation has become tangibly real!

Through our human understanding and reasoning, this idea is enough to create a headache, but it’s possible because God’s word is truer than what we think and feel.

And the only way to get to this place of spiritual maturity is when we make a conscious decision to remain in the hard and not look for “a way out.”

Finding a way out is easier and more common than one may realize.

Finding a way out doesn’t mean you solved the problem — most of the problems we face can’t be easily solved.

But you can find a way out through various coping mechanisms, or by checking out.

You can binge eat to bring comfort. I would know, I was the queen of three dinners followed by some Ben & Jerry’s.

True story.

I learned that I was leaning to food like a drug to check out and bring comfort instead of learning to rely on the Holy Spirit, our true Comforter.

You can find a new job because you don’t like your boss or coworkers.

Or — you can submit your frustrations to God and realize He placed you to be a vessel of His love and usher in the kingdom of Heaven by loving those hard-to-love people into the family of God!

You can check out by scrolling on social media.

You can busy yourself to avoid the emotions of a painful situation and even hide your discouragement and hurt behind “righteous acts” instead of going to the Father for healing so when you serve, you’re serving from a place of freedom and not from a place of brokenness that needs to feel needed, or better about feeling bad.

You get me?

We can leave our marriages because it gets hard instead of learning perseverance and becoming love. (Refer to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

You can become a control freak and live with a need to have everything in order because everything else (including what’s inside of you) feels out of control.

Everything looks so nicely wrapped, and people think you’re amazing, but inside you’re stressed and fearful of anything falling out of place.

This is not freedom.

This is not Jesus.

There are many choices and actions we make daily that are “finding a way out” and these seemingly small decisions are blocking us from growing in spiritual maturity.

Today’s challenge:

Are you being squeezed by life on all sides, or even just one?

Stop and look at what your faith life is saying. Take some time to reflect and ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you’ve made a habit of finding ways out and lay those habits down. Let God do His work in you and through you “so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

Be blessed.

Much love, J 

P.S. If you are struggling to work through the hardships that you’ve walked through, my book, Life is Muddy: How to Conquer the Hard, Heavy, and Hurtful Parts of Life with God is filled with biblical tools to help you navigate the “mud pits” of life and come out a victorious warrior through Christ! You can CLICK HERE FOR YOUR SIGNED COPY or CLICK HERE TO ORDER ON AMAZON.