A Matter of Trust

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on June 25, 2023.  The Bible verses used are James 1:2-18.

            In our reading for today, the Apostle James tells us what our attitude as Christians should be.  Here are some of the things he says:  “Consider it pure joy… when you face trials”.  “Let perseverance finish its work.”  “If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God.”  “Believe and [do] not doubt.”  “Take pride in…humiliation.”  “When tempted, do not say God is tempting me.”

            We read those things from James.  And we probably agree with them.  We agree that’s what our attitude as Christians should be.  But is it really?  How many of us really have those attitudes?

            Now, understand, I don’t think this is some sort of checklist for heavenly glory.  I don’t think James is saying, do all these things, have all these attitudes, or you’re going to hell.  But I do think there’s a lot of good stuff here.  I do think these are attitudes a Christian should have.  So let’s look at them, and as we look at them, let’s think about a couple of questions.  The first question is, do I actually have that attitude?  The second question is, if I don’t, how can I get it?  How can I change my attitude so it is more like the attitude a Christian should have?

            Let’s look at the first one.  In verse two, James says, “Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.”

            I suspect all of us have faced trials at one time or another.  Some of us are probably facing them now.  So let me ask you:  do you consider it pure joy to face trials?  In fact, do you find any joy in it at all?

            Now, to his credit, James does give us a reason why we’re supposed to consider our trials to be pure joy.  He says, “You know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

            And that does happen, at least sometimes.  We do learn lessons from the trials of life.  We do learn things from having our faith tested.  And one of the things that can happen, through that testing, is that we come out stronger than we were before.  Sometimes, when we get to the end of our trials, we can look back and see how we’re better people for having hung in there and worked our way through it.  And sometimes, in the end, we’re grateful for having had to go through what we went through.

            But that’s in the end.  When we’re in the middle, when we’re actually going through the trial, when we’re going through a tough situation and we have no idea how it’s going to come out, we have no idea how we’re ever going to get through this–do we feel joy then?  Maybe you do.  I hope you do.  But I can tell you that I don’t.  Even when I actually can see that God may use what I’m going through to strengthen me, I’d sure a lot rather God would go strengthen somebody else, or strengthen me in a different way, or something.  Conceding that I may be better off in the end for going through what I’m going through does not make me any happier about going through it now.

            James says, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

            Again, I suspect all of us have had times when we just were trying to get through something.  And again, some of us are probably doing that now.  Sometimes, when that happens, we have no choice but to persevere, to just hang in there and let time pass until we finally get to the other side of whatever we’re going through.

            But we sure don’t like it, do we?  When we’re going through something hard, the last thing we want to hear is, “Well, it’s just going to take time.  Hang in there.”  That’s why when I do hospital visits, one of the things I usually pray for is that the person I’m visiting has patience–because most of us don’t have a whole lot of that.  When we’re going through a tough time, when we’re hurting or suffering or just having to deal with something we don’t want to deal with, we want the situation to be over right now.  We want the situation to be fixed and the problem to be solved right now.  And if we can find a short-cut somehow that we’ll make that happen, we’ll take the short-cut.  We do not want to just sit there and “let perseverance finish its work.”  Again, we may recognize that, in the end, we’ll be better off for having gone through whatever it is we’re going through.  But that sure does not make us like it.  And most of the time, we don’t.

            “If any of you lacks wisdom...ask God.”  Now you’d think that would be an easy one.  After all, when we think about all the things God is, one of them is “all-wise”.  So if we want wisdom, who better to ask than God?

            But again, how often do we actually do it?  We ask God for help.  We ask God to do specific things for us.  We might even ask God to help us when we’re faced with a significant decision.  But do we ask God for wisdom?  I don’t, at least not nearly as often as I should.  James says God will give it generously, if we ask.  So we should probably be asking.

            James says, “Believe and do not doubt.”  That may be the hardest one of all.  Again, we know that should be our attitude.  But is it, really?

            I don’t presume to know about you.  I just know that for me, too often, I start to have doubts.  I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, but–once in a while, doubts creep in.  I have many times when I’m like the guy in Mark Chapter Nine who said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”  I believe and I doubt at the same time.

            Now, if that’s where you are, too, we can at least take comfort from the fact that we’re in good company.  Some of the leading Christians of our time, including Mother Teresa, admitted to having doubts sometimes.  But still, it’s not what we want.  I think most of us would love to have one hundred percent belief, with zero percent doubt.  But that’s not where some of us are.

            James says, “Take pride in…humiliation.”  If you’ve ever been humiliated, it’s not a pleasant thing.  It’s embarrassing.  It’s sad.  It’s, well, humiliating.  I don’t know anyone who wants to be humiliated.  

            Yet James says we should take pride in it.  Because, he says, we need to be humbled.  And the more money we have, the more power we have, the more status we have, the more we need to be humbled.  Because it’s only by being humble that we can truly come to rely on God.

            And I can understand that, in theory.  And I can see where it might be necessary.  But boy, I sure don’t like it.  It’s the same as the thing about trials.  We might be able to see why we have to go through them, but that does not make us like it any better.

            Finally, James says, “When tempted, do not say God is tempting me.”  That seems like an easy one.  We know God is good.  We know God would not try to lead us in the wrong direction.  And yet–how many times, when something goes wrong, do we blame God for it?  How many times do we question God, or even accuse God, when it seems like things are not going the way they should?  How many times, when we’ve made a decision that did not work out the way we wanted it to, do we try to make it God’s fault, rather than our own?

            Now remember, I said that as we go through these, we should ask two questions.  We’ve covered the first one pretty well:  do I have the attitude I should have?  But we have not really covered the second one yet:  if I don’t have that attitude, how can I get it?

            Well, first of all, let me tell you how we’re not going to get it.  We’re not going to get it by listening to the world.  We’re not going to get by listening to society.  Because society will tell us that the attitudes we have, the ones James said not to have, are perfectly normal.  We have every right to have them, and in fact we should have them.  We should be upset when we face trials.  We should be impatient when things don’t go our way right away.  We should rely on our own wisdom, rather than asking God for wisdom.  We should have doubts about our faith, if we don’t reject it entirely.  We should be miserable when we’ve been humiliated.  We should blame God when things don’t go the way we want them to.  Society would tell us to feel all those things.

Again, I’m not saying God will send us to hell if we feel those things.  But it’s not what God wants, and really, it’s not what we want, either.  We don’t want to go through life being upset, and impatient, and having doubts.  Do we?  Don’t we want to be at peace with life and at peace with God?  That’s what I want.  I think it’s what most people want.

So how do we do it?  It’s simple.  Trust God.

I know, that’s what a pastor is supposed to say.  But the reason we say it is because it’s true.  If we trust God, we can find joy in our trials, because we know God is at work in them.  If we trust God, we can be patient, knowing that God is at work in God’s way and in God’s timing.  If we trust God, we will rely on God’s wisdom, rather than our own.  If we trust God, we won’t have doubts, and if we do, we’ll be able to set them aside.  If we trust God, we won’t worry about money or status or power, because we know that all comes from God.  If we trust God, we’ll know that if we follow God’s leading, things will go the way they’re supposed to.  It all comes down to trusting God.

How do we get that trust?  Well, that’s the tricky part, right?  But here are a couple of things I do.  First, I pray.  I try to stay as close to God in prayer as I can.  I mean, I’m not setting myself up as the shining example everyone should follow.  I’m just telling you that, when I spend some substantial time in prayer, I can feel God’s presence a lot more, and I can trust God a lot more.

The other thing I do is to think of all the blessings God has given me, and all the times in my life God has been there for me.  Because when I really stop and think about it, there have been an awful lot of them.  That’s not to say that everything in my life has always gone perfectly.  But I can think of a lot of times when things were not going very well, and God was there and helped me through them.  I can think of other times when God put exactly the right person in my life exactly when I needed them.  Things have not always gone the way I wanted them to, and I may have had some tough times, but I’m in a pretty good place now.  And when I look at it, I can see that God was always there for me.  If God has always been there before, the only logical thing to do is to trust that God will be there for me now and in the future.

James lays out some of the attitudes a Christian should have.  They’re attitudes that will help us be happy and live at peace.  If we trust God, we can have those attitudes.  We can know that, whatever happens, God is there, God is in control, and God will work it all out.  Then, we’ll be free to live our lives the way God wants us to live them.