How to Prosper in your Problems

How to Prosper from your Problems

James 1:2-6

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

Scripture doesn't say, "If you encounter problems .” It says, “Whenever you encounter problems.” If you don't have problems, check your pulse.

In Alan Alda’s film, Four Seasons, he and his wife (played by Carol Burnett) get into a roaring fight while on vacation in New Hampshire. In defense of his love for his wife, Alan shouts out, “How could I ever be disappointed with you. You’re perfect!”

But his wife barks back, “How dare you say that! As soon as I’m perfect I cease to exist.”

James seems to be delving into that same reality. We exist, we are defined by struggle and imperfection. But in God, it is our joy! We are alive.

Now of course, there are two ways to have trouble.

1. Some we cause ourselves. We are responsible for these.

2. But other just beset themselves upon us with no precipitous initiative. We can feel victimized, powerless, oppressed, alienated, abused and used.

Look again at verse 2, "...whenever you face problems ..." The word "face" in Greek is peripiptw"peripipto,” It is the same word used in the story of the Good Samaritan trekking along the road to Jericho, minding his own business, when he was attached. "Peripipto” literally means "to fall into unexpectedly.”

To this, James speaks God’s wisdom: stay with God!

I knew a psychiatrist, Dr. John Speck who practiced in Boston, who liked to say, “The human is a stress seeking animal.” His point was that we are predisposed in our neurological configurations to struggle. We don’t do well when life reaches a point of equilibrium. One thing I can say is that life itself rarely lets us rest in such a state. Things happen and we, get this, as children of God are in the midst of the battle. That is to say, we are designed to engage the struggle.

To this, James speaks God’s wisdom, and Paul gives us advice: stay with God!

Neurologically we have a pre-frontal cortex that governs reason, logic, thought, wisdom, knowledge. We also have, deep inside, an area brain scientists call the amygdala that fires off the visceral emotions of many fear responses, including freezing (immobility), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), increased respiration, and stress-hormone release. Left to its own devises and desires, the work of the amygdala is bound to cause a lot of devastation. But with reason, with the thought of God in the cortex, a resonance begins to develop that modulates the visceral reflexes and harmonizes the brain to invoke not retaliation, but reconciliation. Dr. Andrew Newburg, Director of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania, has observed, “Meditation [on God] has shown to modulate the amygdala.”[i]

In effect, keeping the mind on God modulates the animalistic impulses of evil.

James wasn’t a neuroscientist, but he did know we stand with our feet in both camps of good and evil.

Face my problems, along with God, and I will purify faith. Christians are like tea bags. You don't know what's inside of us until you drop us in hot water.

That’s when the faith is most important. Faith develops when we are challenged.

Is this the joy James is referring to? I think so, that is if we face our problems with a God who will modulate our impulses and hone our compassion.

Face my problems, along with God, and I will fortify patience.

James notes in verse 4, “the testing of your faith develops perseverance." He's talking about staying power; not a passive patience of a bench warmer, but staying power, endurance.

We don't like pressure and we do everything we can to avoid it. We run from it, take drugs, drink alcohol, go to Disneyland, anything to get away from pressure.

Ernest Henry Shackleton, the arctic explorer who became marooned on the ice field of the Wendell Sea off Antarctica in 1915, survived with his entire crewby virtue of his motto, “By Endurance We Conquer.” He named his ship after this motto, “Endurance.”

It is about the ability to keep-on keeping-on, to hang in there, to keep applying oneself with whatever resources we have, to meet the squall head on and tack the ship anyway necessary to ride out the swales.

The Greek here is literally "the ability to stay under pressure."

It is said that when the ship Endurance was being crushed in the ice flows of Antarctica, Shakelton insisted on two things being taken off the boat over and above the necessities for survival, personal journals and the Psalms.

If they were going to conquer the problems, they needed to be focused on, and fortified with ... God.

Face my problems, along with God, and I will gain wisdom to act.

I know it is tempting to say, “Lord, fix this!”

I have financial trouble, “Lord, make my lottery ticket win.”

My marriage is on the rocks, “Lord, fix my wife.”

The company is downsizing, “Lord, give me big severance package.”

I have no doubt that God can, and does, intercede in miraculous ways, but I also worry that to dismiss our role as God’s agents of faith in the face of problems, violates our responsibility to take the world by the horns and direct it to a graceful future.

So I hear James reminding us, as I hear the neurophysiologists confirming for us, that when we face our problems of finances, relationship, health, employment with a mind oriented to the presence of God, then we begin to prosper with a wisdom of godly fashion.

Consistently out of James I see the accentuation of using our knowledge and reason to shape our character and faith in such a way as we become agents of the divine, not antagonists for evil.

· From Job we know that Satan attacks character (Job 1-2).

· From the prophet Zechariah we know Satan wants to oppose the angels of the Lord (Zech 3).

· We know from Matthew that Satan tempts our emotional loneliness (Matthew 4).

· And from Matthew we know that the Evil One inspires us to lie (Matthew 5:37).

Satan wants to use problems to defeat you, but God wants to use those problems to develop you. Which will it be?

But James reminds us that God is more interested in building your character than making life comfortable. God is more interested in developing faith than fortunes, wisdom than wealth, stamina than simplicity, enduring integrity than easy living.

There is a fantastic promise in v. 12

"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial. When such has stood the test they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love the Lord."

[i] Andrew Newburg, M.D. and Mark Walkman, How God Changes Your Brain,” c. 2010 Ballentine Books, p.52