The Reward is Life

“In our lives the dark­est times, the days that are bleak and black, add depth to every other expe­ri­ence. Like the dark bits of color in a mosaic, they add the con­trast and shad­ows that give beauty to the whole, but they are just a small part of the big pic­ture.“
~ Amy Grant~
Mosaic: Pieces of My Life so Far

Have you ever felt really happy, con­tented, and sat­is­fied about a par­tic­u­lar out­come, event or sit­u­a­tion in your life? And as you are telling your­self how good your life is, how thrilled you are at that moment in time, found your mind wan­der­ing back to another time, another cir­cum­stance when you felt despair, dis­ap­point­ment or utterly lost?

If so, you are not alone or unique. Instead, you have expe­ri­enced Amy Grant’s words in action.

We learn and become stronger as a result of endur­ing tri­als, tests of our faith, chal­lenges to our stead­fast beliefs. James tells us to rejoice when we are tried:

Con­sider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and chal­lenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pres­sure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true col­ors. So don’t try to get out of any­thing pre­ma­turely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not defi­cient in any way.

James 1:2–4

Those are dif­fi­cult words to hear when you are embroiled in con­tro­versy, your judg­ment is being ques­tioned by man­agers or super­vi­sors, your chil­dren are dis­obe­di­ent and head­strong, and var­i­ous loved ones are deal­ing with phys­i­cal illnesses.

I have often con­sid­ered those words when under a great deal of stress and said to myself, “Yeah, right. Thanks a bunch for this ‘gift’!”

That, too, is an all-too-human reac­tion. I real­ize that even as the thought is form­ing and force myself to con­tinue read­ing because the words that imme­di­ately fol­low that pas­sage are the ones to which I return over and over, cling­ing to their promise:

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be con­de­scended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believ­ingly, with­out a sec­ond thought. Peo­ple who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get any­thing from the Mas­ter that way, adrift at sea, keep­ing all your options open.

When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arro­gant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Pros­per­ity is as short-lived as a wild­flower, so don’t ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pour­ing down its scorch­ing heat, the flower with­ers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beau­ti­ful face is a bar­ren stem. Well, that’s a pic­ture of the “pros­per­ous life.” At the very moment every­one is look­ing on in admi­ra­tion, it fades away to nothing.

Any­one who meets a test­ing chal­lenge head-on and man­ages to stick it out is mighty for­tu­nate. For such per­sons loy­ally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.

James 1:5–12

This is a great time of year to see James’ words illus­trated. Just look around at the beau­ti­ful trees with their mag­nif­i­cent dis­play of vibrant oranges, reds, yel­lows. All of those leaves are grad­u­ally falling to the ground and, at least in my part of the world, the trees with be bare long before Christ­mas. The leaves will be dry, life­less, brown and beige rem­nants, piled in the gut­ters before being whisked away by the street sweep­ers. Even as we mar­vel at them on these crisp Novem­ber morn­ings, they are wilt­ing and fad­ing away to noth­ing. They will be replaced in the spring by tiny buds that will develop into lush and lovely green leaves before repeat­ing the cycle all over again.

Our lives evolve in much the same kind of cycle. Past glory gives way to new chal­lenges, new hur­dles to jump which are even­tu­ally just a reflec­tion in the rear-view mir­rors of our mem­o­ries, and on and on . . . Each new trial, each new stum­bling block is an oppor­tu­nity to per­se­vere and tri­umph. And each vic­tory, achieved only with the help and guid­ance of the one who loves us most, is yet another oppor­tu­nity to wor­ship, rejoice, and acknowl­edge that ever-present, uncon­di­tional boun­teous love and care. Eter­nal life is our reward for remain­ing stead­fast and loyal in our faith, obe­di­ent to the Word despite the many ways in which our beliefs are tested.

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