Count It All Joy? Embracing God’s Promise to Bring Beauty Instead of Ashes

As an English teacher, I give many different writing prompts to provide writing practice for my students. One of the most interesting prompts of late asked them to retell a story from their lives but have them add a different ending. Of course, the prompt is giving them an opportunity to change the story in their favor-a win instead of a loss, a place on the team, the grade they wanted, a dream relationship come to fruition, the reverse of a family tragedy. Every year, however, I have students who don’t follow the prompt-some out of laziness, some defiance-but this particular year, one student just wanted to make a point-the difficulty in her story had made her a better person, so she wouldn’t change a thing. The previous year her father’s business had failed ending in bankruptcy. Her very comfortable life in a beautiful resort town came to a screeching halt as she and her family had to move and start over from scratch. Despite the discomfort she and her family felt during this time, she wouldn’t trade the closeness her family now had and the maturity she had gained as she had to get a job just to pay for her basic necessities.

For many of us,  2020 has been quite the year, especially for those of us Americans, Europeans, etc . . . accustomed to a life of ease.  Uncomfortable is an understatement.  Who would have guessed when we said, “Happy New Year!” we would be welcoming death, disease, lock downs, job loss, mental health crises, viral police brutality (and not just once) and now, curfews because of looting and rioting and more death, as a result.  Where is God right now? Boy, would we like to change the story of this year so far-and I would love to be able to control how it ends. Sure, we act truly concerned about what is going on, but what most of us are really asking is, “Why is God taking away my nice, neat, comfortable life?  When is all of this just going to end so that I can go back to focusing on myself and my family?  This is too much!” 

Yeah, yeah, we know that God uses difficulty to grow us, and we reluctantly recall the command, “Count it all joy when (we) meet trials of various kinds, for (we) know that the testing of (our) faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3).  The call to endure difficulty I can understand, but to be joyful, really?  COVID doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, the riots continue, and the police are villainized and threatened daily.  Our daily lives, jobs, schools, churches have all been turned upside down. We can’t go see a movie much less take a vacation. What is there to be joyful about? Surely God didn’t mean it.  

While Christian history is full of suffering, the Western church itself has endured very little difficulty of late. The missionary Amy Carmichael who devoted her life to rescuing Indian children from religious sexual abuse said, “We profess to be strangers and pilgrims, seeking after a country of our own, yet we settle down in the most un-stranger-like fashion, exactly as if we were quite at home and meant to stay as long as we could. I don’t wonder apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living certainly has.” While the church is not directly under attack, the lifestyle of Western Christians is. Instead of mourning the comfort we knew, may we embrace the promise that these moments of discomfort and testing will allow God to make beauty from ashes. As Hebrews 12 states, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

So, may we see beyond the current discomfort we feel-some more acute than others-and believe God. Believe that he can use this time to make his church-and us as individuals-more steadfast, more unified, and more mature like Christ and our brothers and sisters in ages past and present who endured great persecution even unto death. For this, we can be joyful knowing that this earth is not our home, and he has sent Christ, ” . . . to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,and provide for those who grieve in Zion– to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:1-3).

Count it all joy!