Let Endurance Have Its Full Effect

I haven’t written here for a long time. Life has gotten in the way. Frankly, I’ve felt overwhelmed with struggle. Divorce, single parenting, breast cancer, diabetes, juvenile arthritis, 4 surgeries, numerous other medical procedures, etc. Life has financially funneled me down to taking a full time job teaching math at our local community college. It’s not ideal for a single parent, but it is a blessing in many ways. And then, one week before I was to start my first full time job in eighteen years, I tore my retina in my left eye.

Thankfully, the retina didn’t totally detach. However, it did leave me temporarily blind in my left eye as I started my new job and finished a second round of edits on a manuscript. The only restriction given me by my doctor? Don’t read.

I still chuckle at the irony.

Two weeks after the tear, I began to regain some vision in my left eye. I remember the moment, crying out to God for help, when the words on the TV cleared up for the first time, and I could finally make out what was happening on the screen. It seemed a clear miracle after seeing virtually nothing out of the eye for two weeks. Yet, a bloody haze still clouds my vision as yet another week has passed. I have walked the loop around my farmhouse crying out to God.

“Why another struggle on top of all of my other ones, Lord? Make it stop now!”

As I walked, the Spirit strongly convicted me that I needed to, yes, read the Word. I was sneaking reading in on my cell phone anyway. I needed to read the Scriptures even more so. I desperately needed God’s help through His Word. So I broke open a book in the New Testament that I picked because it had the least amount of highlighting in my new Bible. It was James.

I had forgotten how James began, but if you’ve read it lately, you know. It opens with a message about trials and maturity, and the Spirit spoke clearly to me through it.

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

LET ENDURANCE HAVE ITS FULL EFFECT.

The Spirit spoke loud and clear to me, and this phrase has echoed in my head ever since. I want this trial over. I want to see clearly. I want to see my computer at work which is integral to my job. I want to see clearly to finish editing my book. I want to see clearly to take care of my children, clean my house, and pay my bills. It makes sense that I kick and scream wanting this particular physical struggle over right now.

But God whispers to me to let this trial do what its going to do in my life. Don’t rush it. Endure it. And let the full effects of enduring manifest themselves in my life. Let endurance have its full effect.

effect: A change which is a result or consequence of an action or other cause.

en.oxforddictionaries.com

Managing the day in and day out compensations I must make to fulfill my obligations while my vision is compromised will have some effect in my life. It will cause a change. My divorce has. My cancer has. My diabetes and arthritis have as well. The implication in James is this change is for my good, and it is worth the journey so that the full benefit of these changes manifests in my life. The expectation of very real (and good) effects is why we can count it all JOY. Note, it isn’t that we feel joy. Counting it joy is a mental discipline, not a feeling. The expectation of beneficial effects enables us to put our trials in the JOY column when they seem only misery. This exercise gives us hope.

I know the sum of my struggles has brought real change for good in my life. One of the primary changes is that I’m a more patient parent. I’m also a more patient teacher. I’m a more patient daughter, sister, and friend. And friends, patience is a very good thing in life. Patience benefits me as much as it benefits those with whom I interact.

I don’t know what trials you are facing, but I encourage you that, submitted to God, they can bring a change in your life that is good. That blesses you and your loved ones. So, with the Scriptures, I encourage that as you work wisely for their end, you also, as you endure them, let the time of enduring have its full effect in your life. Look for the effect. Wait for the effect. Believe that there is a purpose that will bless you. That’s when joy can start to infiltrate something that has previously only been frustrating or full of grief.

Let endurance have its full effect. James 1:4