Suck it Up!

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:2-8



I'm going to try and not turn this into Whiner-fest '99 but we are turning out a generation of wimps and whiners. For years we've allowed Christians to portrayed in movies & t.v. as whiners and wimps. I remember a good friend of mine several years ago saying "Christians are not weak-kneed, wishy-washy wimps!" It's time to challenge ourselves to have the biblical version of "belief" and "hope". We intimidate our kids by telling them they have it harder than anyone else has ever had it. Instead we should focus on the FACT, not theory, that Jesus has overcome the world!!!! Mike Aquilina gave us some insight to the challenge given to the children of the 1st Century Church




"How did the Fathers do it? They made wild promises.They promised young people great things, like persecution, lower social status, public ridicule, severely limited employment opportunities, frequent fasting, a high risk of jail and torture, and maybe, just maybe, an early, violent death at the hands of their pagan rulers. The Fathers looked young people in the eye and called them to live purely in the midst of a pornographic culture. They looked at some young men and women and boldly told them they had a calling to virginity. And it worked. Even the pagans noticed how well it worked."



All humans to some degree are selfish and it's something we fight all of our lives but many Christians out there are not fighting it. Unfortunately it's passed on to their kids. I guess what I'm challenging myself to do is to continue to press on to the maturity ("perfect and complete") mentioned in the previous verse.

James tells us the only path to maturity in Christ is to suffer. Suffer with the right attitude. Remember how Jesus told the disciples to fast? He told them not to do it like the hypocrites, who whined and made it known how uncomfortable they were (Matthew 6:16-18). James picks up where Jesus left off by starting with the attitude we are to have when faced with hardship. He said "Consider it all joy", some translations say "Count it as a pure gift from God". Everytime we face a hardship, we must fight our selfishness and look at it as an opportunity to get better! We would do well to remember there are at least two forms of criticism, positive and negative but even the negative from the Christian perspective should be well recieved. I know from experience this is not easy but I'm thankful I didn't have a parent who crippled me by running to protect me from every form of discipline or hardship. It seems everyday I have to remind myself that "God disciplines those whom He loves"(Hebrews 12:5). God's love is shown by His willingness to do whatever it takes to have a relationship with us (John 3:16). Our love for each other is so often shown by doing and saying what other's would not, no matter how much they may say they hate us for doing it. God took that chance and so we must do the same.