James 1:2-4

2 Count it all joy, my brothers,[a] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 And let perseverance have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

   This passage has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Lately, I have been dealing with a lot seeing a lot of new plans going forward with life seeming to go up in a mushroom cloud, even when I felt that God was telling me to go forward with those plans. But, this verse has taken on a whole new meaning for me. not only due to the fact that it wants me to take joy during trials!!! that's the last thing that I want to do! I want to come in and put my foot down and say this is going to be how it is and your going to have to live with it! If i were to do that, that would be counter intuitive. 

   The weird thing about this is if I do "count it all joy" and trust that God will work it all out for his glory and my good, then God can go to work. Basically, If I don't allow this to happen, then I'm interfering with God. I'm getting in the way of his plan and purpose of molding me into who he has called me to be. If I do allow him to, then he can use the spirit that he has implanted in me (that faith) and produce perseverance. I think perseverance could mean a couple of things:

  first, it could be faith in general. By going through this you rely on Christ more than you ever had up to that point and then by relying bring you out of this storm that your in. Secondly, it allows his spirit to become more active in the lives of others. For lack of a better term, he's allowing us to go through that because he's working on someone else at the same time and to keep you from interfering with that growth process he has going for that person. So really he's working with both of you but not ready to allow them to work together yet.

  So the long short of it is this. When you go through trials, it'd not because hates you or has a vendetta against you, rather he's preparing you for your next step in life and your walk with him. Is it going to be tough? Absolutely? Be the worst thing you've ever experienced? Possible. But God will bring you through it. How do I know that...I've been there and done that. Believe me when I say this:I know what it's like to feel like your in hell. But really when you think about it, God always has you in the palm of his hand. He knows exactly what he's doing and how it's all going to come to completion. How do I know that? Because even though I've been through and will go through big and small ones to come, my God promised he would deliver me and he hasn't failed me yet...And he never will.