Trials and Temptations (James 1:2-8)

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

After his greeting, James’s first words are a call to rejoice, but, strangely enough, what he tells us to rejoice about is facing trials and temptations in life. He argues that such testing helps us to perfect our faith. As we shall see, this is one of the major themes of the letter. This, of course, does not mean that Christians should be masochists, taking perverse pleasure in our own suffering. Nor should we despair at difficulties but rather understand that good can come from such experiences. In verse three, James argues that enduring patiently can produce “perseverance”, and in the next verse he tells us that this perseverance will help us grow as Christians and as human beings.

The second major theme in this extract is the gift of wisdom, and he tells us that we should ask God for it (5). In Jewish belief, all wisdom comes to people as a gift from God. The archetypal example of this is Solomon who, when God offered him anything he might desire, chose wisdom. When we go through a period of trial and suffering, therefore, we need to ask God for the wisdom to get through it and guide us in our actions. If we do this, in spite of all our difficulties, we will experience that joy mentioned at the start.

But James is very clear about prayer: we must not doubt. He believes that the main reason God does not answer our prayers is our lack of faith. People who lack faith, James calls “double-minded” for they are so full of uncertainty that they don’t know whether they can trust God or not. He illustrates how fickle such people are by comparing them to a wave in the sea, tossed by the wind. God, on the other, hand, is eternally faithful and wants only what is good for us. Yet, how difficult it is to believe that at certain times in our life.