12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who live him.
Perseverance! I hate that word. I don’t want to persevere when I am in a trial. I want the trial to simply go away. I want the trial over and done with. I don’t want to gain any lesson through the trial. Wah wah wah wah wah! There is something special to be gained if we persevere. This verse says we get the “crown of life” if we stick with it. I don’t necessarily want a victor’s crown, the crown given to the winner of an ancient competition. What I want is relief! But what I want and what I need are often two very different items. We need a secure eternity. We need to be dying to our old, sinful and selfish desires. We need to be renewed by His Spirit in our inner man. James goes on in this letter to explain the origin of this battle. He first says that the temptation does not come from the Lord, but from within us. It is our own internal struggle with the old sin nature that gets us in such hot water. The problem is that we don’t want to solve the internal struggle. We want to be able to point our finger at anybody and everybody else. But when we win this internal battle, then no matter what trial comes our way, we will be able to triumph. The trial of persecution gets won inside us, not through legislation or body armor. Even when the trial is brought on by external forces, the believer wins that battle by surrender to the will of God. When we realize that God has a good and perfect gift for us, then we can rest in His arms and in the middle of His will. The struggle will cease, though the pain of the trial might not. We might still have to walk every painful step through whatever difficulty we are facing, but the struggle will not be there. We will be at peace with God, with ourselves and with the world.
The Arnold Journey 