Description
Finding Balance: Joy and Suffering in the Christian Life
In this episode, we explore the balance between joy and suffer… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but sometimes they exasperate me, and I’m sure I exasperate them. When a fellow Christian says, we should always be happy, I wonder if they have truly suffered in life. Yes, we have lots of reason to have joy in our hearts, but Jesus wept, and Jesus suffered. So it’s okay for us to weep and suffer too.
And I love the wisdom that James brings in James chapter five, verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
James is clear about the action that’s appropriate to take if we’re either light of heart or heavy of heart. For those who are suffering, for those who are down, for those who are depressed, prayer is an excellent place for us to go.
We don’t deny our suffering. We don’t say I have to be cheerful at all times, I’m a Christian! Yes, the joy of the Lord is our strength, but that doesn’t mean we are falsely happy. Are we suffering? Let us pray. Let us ask our brothers and sisters to pray for us, to pray with us.
On the other hand. Are we cheerful? Do we have reason to delight? Well, let’s make sure that the praise for those reasons goes back to God. Every good and perfect gift is from Him. If we are receiving perfect gifts, if we are receiving things in our life that are making us happy, in addition to our salvation, let us praise God for that. Let us be sure that we are giving credit where credit’s due.
It is well with our souls because of Him. But please let us be reasonable and realistic with one another, not putting undue pressure on our brothers and sisters and recognising that sometimes when someone’s suffering, the thing that we need to do is sit down with them in the dirt and just love them.
Thank you God for the wisdom that you have given us in the book of James. Please help us to apply it. Amen.
