The Book of James Is Cruel

The last post ended with the statement that life is hard. In fact, the more I live, the more I find myself accepting that life is indeed hard and full of problems. In his book, The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck said as much but encourages us to look at these problems as a chance to mature. In so many words, he tells us to accept that life will always be hard so we might as well learn to focus on solving our problems instead of trying to avoid the inevitable pain. 

When Life Sucks

However, it is also a fact that we will not always succeed and may choose not to address a problem. That is part of our humanity. And if you won’t take it from Peck, take it from Christ, who was very explicit about it, telling his disciples they will have trouble. Importantly, Christ also comforts his disciples pointing out that he has overcome and by extension his disciples. 

How Church Does Not Help

Where things can go terribly wrong is when churches put a lot of emphasis on “overcoming” and gloss over the “troubles”. It is almost as if it was a foregone conclusion that the believer should overcome. Because if they are not, then they threaten the entire edifice of how well-meaning people think this should all go. Preferably, the way we tend to read James 1 where he tells his readers “to count it all joy when you fall into various trials”. James certainly points to the potential of trials which test our faith and how we can come out stronger at the other end. Personally, I have found the truth in that, but I also had to learn to ask for help from a very strong support network, and my wife is a saint. 

That Thing about Joy in Trials

But was it “all joy”? Absolutely not. I’d like to think I have matured but I did not relish the process. To be honest, I sometimes dread the next one. And again, from personal experience, I know it is very hard to feel victorious in trials when you are hooked up to all sorts of machines and have tubes coming out of your chest while sobbing like a three-year-old in the presence of total strangers because your ability to keep up appearances crumbles — fast. 

Rethink the Concept of a Test of Faith

Our troubles are hard enough but some people and/or their environments have a knack for making in harder. Depending on how you are wired, the entire concept of a “test” is just overbearing and a cruel burden because the word test implies pass or fail. School and other institutions are based on pass and fail. We spend a certain amount of time to prepare (that’s when we are troubled) and mostly get the results pretty quickly. If that is the context for how we view a “test of faith”, we need to really examine our understanding of it.