Perseverance Finishes

Ok here are some thoughts before I go to bed. In James chapter 1:2-4 it says

"2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. " New International Version from biblegateway. 

Now I don't know about you, but facing trials of many kinds doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me, yet here is this man of God, telling me to consider it pure joy. Now I learned from TV pastors and my own pastor to look things up in a dictionary, I have a concordance that I bought for my wife, but I don't know how to use it so I just looked up some words at Merriam Webster. 

Merriam Webster online says that joy is "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires". So when you leave the Wal-Mart parking lot after having bought a load of groceries when you really don't know how to shop for a house hold of six people to begin with, and you unload the cart into the trunk of your car only to realize that you have a flat tire on the passenger side and now you have to unload the trunk of the car to change the flat I am supposed to consider it good fortune or possessing what I desire? Or when you are leaving work early, and you are going to be home four hours early to surprise your wife, and then you are on a motorcycle and you have a flat 60 miles from home and AAA says you don't have long distance towing after you know you paid for that option specifically because this is not the first time this has happened and you have the bill at home to prove it and your cell phone dies before you can rectify the situation I am supposed to experience well being, success and good fortune? Sounds crazy to me. 

The second part of this says that the testing of our faith develops perseverance, and that perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be complete, and mature, and not lacking anything. Ok so now we are getting somewhere, I don't want to be lacking anything, do you? Merriam Webster online says that perseverance "is the action or condition or an instance of persevering", persevering is "to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement". So persist means,"to go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of opposition, importunity, or warning". The testing of your faith develops the action of going on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of opposition and remaining there at all odds so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

If you don't go through trials, how will you be able to handle that new job you asked for, or how will you be able to keep up with the new ministry you took on? So next time you are in a trial, just think to yourself, ah, God must be getting ready to move me to a whole new level, and if I am not properly prepared for it, I would really be in a world of hurt.