Long distance running isn’t easy. It requires months of training to build physical endurance and mental determination to keep going through the pain, adverse weather and rough terrain. Perseverance, James tells us, builds character, and brings us to maturity (v 4).

James grabs our attention by challenging us to consider it pure joy to face trials in our lives (v 2). Why? Because through the experience of hardship and struggle our faith can grow and mature. Learning to trust God in all circumstances builds perseverance, a quality that was perfectly ascribed to Jesus who ‘For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross’ (Hebrews 12:2). 

Our faith can seem like a long-distance run. It can be exhilarating, but just as the runner develops perseverance for those long, painful and lonely stretches, so through times of suffering we develop confidence in a faithful God. Like a young child who has learned absolute trust in his or her parents, we can ask for all we need when times get tough, knowing that God will never abandon us. This changes our focus on life. Trials may not be welcome, but we can choose to approach hardship with hope, in the knowledge that through them God will change us. 

Spend time praying that, as we consider this letter, we will be open to the challenges God will bring to us through our reading and thoughts. 

In these opening verses, James introduces some of the topics he will be addressing throughout the letter. As a result, there are a number of issues introduced and this can make James’ argument in this section difficult to follow, but there is coherence if we understand that this forms the ‘thematic foundation’¹ for the entire letter.

James begins by recognising that this is a community experiencing trials (v 2). The natural response to tough times is to ask questions about the source of those trials, the rationale for them and how we should respond. James is certain that the only way these questions can be properly answered is to ask for God’s wisdom (v 5), given generously by God to those who ask without doubting, because to doubt God is to be ‘double-minded’ (vs 6–8). Introduced in verse 9, another issue that James will go on to address in the letter is the problem of rich and poor within the community and, specifically, the transitory nature of wealth and the fact that God honours the poor. 

Who has not experienced tough times? James says that we should respond in joy because of what God will do in us as we go through these times. This is countercultural, because it appears nonsensical, but God is more interested in our growth in maturity (v 4). We recognise that truth requires God’s wisdom precisely because the world will say it is absurd. However, that is not the only countercultural aspect of James’ teaching in this passage. The value the world gives to wealth and its possession and to those who lack such wealth is turned on its head. At the beginning of James, we are reminded that we are called to live differently from the world. This is not optional!

Pray for God’s wisdom to see the world as he sees it and to enable you to live differently within it. Remember, God gives generously to those who ask.

¹ Blomberg and Kamell, James, 2008, p22