The first couple of verses today turn away from the ideas preceding, talking about the rich man and how his riches are fleeting, and then James gets back to addressing this idea of ‘good suffering’, or enduring through faith in the face of trials.  Perhaps James was eluding to the idea that some people think that having money means you don’t have trials, I don’t know...but he definitely is stressing that we should stay faithful during trying times.  I think these verses are really poetic, so I am going to read them real quickly (v12-18).

I love that James uses that word promised; as we discussed yesterday, God doesn’t really give many real ‘promises’; this is one though.  James would say that God has promised to meet us in our time of need if we remain faithful.  He will redeem our struggle, or use it in some way that is for good.  That’s a promise.  And James stresses something we talked about yesterday, that struggle and evil are not from God, but from that only good comes from Him.  WE are the reason for sin, God is the reason for goodness, the the rescuer.  This is an important concept to really understand, that sin is a result of our decisions, and of decisions of others past, not God’s desire.   God didn’t put evil in the world to mess with us.  Evil is the result of our using our free will in a way it wasn’t intended...to be our own god.  When we rebelled God in the Garden of Eden, God judged that sin; which is what every good parent would do, judge a wrong doing.  But God has been going about rescuing us from ourselves ever since.   It is a beautiful story, and it seems odd and it sounds a little weird until you really spend time thinking about it...it makes sense.

For today though, the takeaway for me kind of falls in line with yesterday a little, but it is just recognizing how blessed I really am, and in so many ways that I don’t even realize.  I have to leverage that when I struggle, and remember that, and hold to the fact that God has promised to use my struggles for good if I can remain faithful.  That’s a promise I can test, and that’s also a promise that, looking back, I can honestly say He has always kept.