“As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” – James 5:11
The goal of worldliness is to avoid suffering. As much as possible the goal is to succeed in every way no matter what it costs and no matter who gets hurt. However, the goals of Christians are different. Our goals should always be heavenly and that is to remain faithful to God and to become patient in all of our adversaries. Our verse today talks about how the Christians should act when it comes to facing adversaries, trials and tribulations in life. James used the prophet Job as an example for us to follow.
Job was a very faithful man of God. Despite all of what happened to him, he remained faithful and chose to continue to serve God. He lost everything— his family, his wealth and even his good health. His life has been so hard and normal people would really look at it as an unfair life but Job showed full patience and trust in God. He did not renounce his faith to God, but still he became closer to God because he prays a lot. So, this is what James wants to remind us so that we will not lose our focus.
God wants us to remain faithful to Him no matter what the circumstances. He wants us to see all the trials and tribulations as a blessing from Him because we know that through this, we are going to improve our perseverance, patience and our faith towards Him. Rejoicing in our suffering is really such a hard thing to do, but it is meritable. We have to understand that God only puts us into these stages of life to teach and discipline us. His promise to remain with us always is still there and we will really appreciate it better if we are put into these situations because we will cling more to God.
Now, as the year is drawing to its end, we should look back to this whole year and to all the trials and tribulations we underwent. We must look back on how God remained faithful to us and to His Word that He will always be with us. 2020 was the year of trials and tribulations for all the people but we are still here, kicking and fighting. We are still here, alive and healthy because we hold on to the promises of Christ. So, as soon as a new year will come, a new decade will come, we should always remember this reminder from James that we should always consider our trials and tribulations as blessings from God to prepare and to improve our patience, perseverance and faith towards Him.
Just like Job, we must remain faithful to God no matter what. We should always hold onto His promise and continue to goal for heavenly things instead of worldly things. We must remember that His grace is indeed sufficient that His power is made perfect in our weaknesses. Thus, in our weaknesses, He is more present and He is more involved because He will grant us the strength to endure and the strength to persevere against all odds.
Therefore, we must really see all of our hardships as a blessing in disguise from God. we should see it as our training and that He will always sustain us in what we need. We must understand that He is the God of promise and He will remain in us, so we must also remain Him and always consider our present suffering as pure joy for this is nothing compared to the glory we will then receive in the future through Christ our Lord. As we welcome another year of our life, let us thank God for His blessings and let us bless His holy name for teaching us how to be patient; for teaching us endurance and perseverance; and for teaching us how to remain faithful to Him.
May we always keep this in our hearts and mind as we usher this new year. New year means new trials and tribulations but the good news is that God will always have our backs. He even has our backs since from the beginning of time and even carried our cross to Calvary because of His love and grace, how much more now? Let us always put our hope; our trust; our faith; our patience and endurance to Him— the one who made our salvation possible by dying on the cross for us.
