In chatting with a member of our family just yesterday, we talked about how from one day to the next you don't know if the laws will change, lockdown will be re-instated or what the next news broadcast will say.
When the Unexpected Arrives
I had another little lesson on dealing with the unexpected just recently in the form of an unexpected arrival in our garden of….a mushroom! Yes, that photo above is of a mushroom.
In our garden there is a pathway area which is just plain dirt and nothing normally grows - even weeds don't grow there very often.
But just a few days ago, we noticed a 'bump' or 'lump' of some kind had suddenly appeared in the middle of the dirt path. From a distance I wasn't sure what it was, but I did not think it had been there the day before.
When we went to do a close-up check, this is what we found!
Yes, definitely a mushroom. A lone, quite large mushroom. On a dry dirt path, in the middle of a dry cold winter! How bizarre.
It seemed totally out of place, in the wrong season, and like it had come out of nowhere…although it was plainly obvious that it had pushed its way out through the loose dusty dirt - since it still had 'dirt' covering the top of it. It felt like a strange mix of a surprise and the totally weird!….it was almost the definition of the unexpected. This thing was a sudden 'intrusion' and 'disturbance' to the quiet and peaceful smooth patch of dirt pathway, and from our perspective it was not meant to be there.
I wasn't sure whether to see it as a nuisance, annoyance, a danger, cute, ornamental, intriguing or delightful. Should we remove it, wait and observe it, or enjoy its beauty?
But then I got to thinking….this is like so many unexpected things in life to which we can have a multitude of responses.
We can be initially shocked, or annoyed or angry or frustrated if we think the 'unexpected' is also undesired. Or we can be intrigued or delighted if the 'unexpected' is pleasurable.
But this little mushroom brought a mix of responses, and became a mini-example (on a low scale of course) of the first few verses of the book of James which talk about trials.
Responding to the Unexpected
Sometimes when the unexpected arrives into our life we wonder if it is something from God or from Satan. This is a factor, but there is another 'or' issue, and that is how we respond 'to' the unexpected.
The English words for trial, and tempt/temptation in James 1 are the same word in the Greek (peirasmon) and some translations translate it as trial and some as trouble and some as temptation. James says that such things are to be counted as 'joy' in James 1:2, but he also says that God doesn't tempt anyone (James 1;13). So how are we to understand this?
My mushroom which elicited a range of responses in me was helping me to gain some new light on this….along with a 'well-timed' sermon from our Pastor last Sunday!
Events in our lives, particularly those that are unexpected, may be difficult, but in one sense are 'neutral' in themselves. From Satan's perspective they are opportunities and vehicles to tempt us to succumb to sin. But when we come to them from God's perspective they are gifts in order to test and strengthen us as we resist the devil's temptation to sin and instead grow in faith in God.
When Satan sent unexpected difficulties into Job's life in order to tempt him to reject God (or as Job's wife said to 'curse God'), God's purpose in allowing them was not to tempt Job to do wrong, but to test and prove and thus grow and deepen Job's faith so that at the end of the process Job joyfully praised the Lord for how his faith had come forth 'as gold' (Job 23:10). Satan's purpose was to lure Job away from faith in God, as opposed to God's purpose being to strengthen and prove and show forth Job's loyalty and trust in God.
A similar scenario occurred when Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit…. to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1). The wilderness experience was what Satan wanted to use to lure Jesus away from his Father's will, but God used it to prove that Jesus could not be 'lured' to sin and God's plan would be accomplished God's way.
Without God and his perspective, any 'trial' is going to be a time of temptation that is for sure. It will get us down, discouraged, disquieted and disappointed, and we are sure to respond with disobedience to God's commands and dishonouring of his name.
But with God in our trials, they are times where he is proving/testing our faith in order to strengthen it.
In James 1:3 which says:
'you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance',
the word used for testing is different from the 'trials' word.
This time the word for test is 'dokimos', which means to test the genuineness of something. He is shining the light on whether we will be loyal toward him rather being lured away from him toward evil. So James is saying when we understand God's perspective on life, the various trials (peirasmon) we face don't have to fulfil Satan's aim for them, rather they are for the testing (dokimos) of our faith to the glory of God.
God does not lure/tempt us to evil and never sends circumstances into our lives to lure us to sin. Any pull toward evil is coming from Satan and the sin in our world and in our own hearts (James 1:14). God is about working for good and holiness and our growth in faith in him.
God's reason to allow trials and temptations is the opposite of Satan's schemes in wanting us to be entrapped and tripped up.
Rather than Satan's purpose of increasing our worry and fear and destroying our faith and stopping us from glorifying God, God wants to build our faith, grow us in perseverance (James 1:2-5), have us keep our eyes fixed on him, be reminded of his faithfulness, and bless us with peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7)!
…and that is still the case even when the 'intrusion' and problems just gets bigger rather than going away, like what happened with Job, and with our mushroom!….to about 15cm/6 in. tall!
Its an Honour Choice
As I thought about my mixed reactions toward the mushroom - a bit negatively with annoyance with it being in the middle of the pathway, but then with the delight and joy of its beauty, quaintness, uniqueness, and the way it could point me to praise the Creator - I saw a parallel with our own 'trials' as human beings on this earth.
In these times, we can respond by succumbing to the temptation to get annoyed, angry, disappointed or complaining about the 'intrusion', or we can view it as an opportunity to see what God may want to teach us through it, and how he wants us to focus on who he is and the gifts of learning to delight and rejoice in new ways. Instead of thinking of the temporary here-and-now and perceiving them as disruptions to our schedules/expectations, they are meant to be viewed in the light of the eternal and create opportunities to delight in God and the trustworthiness of his plans.
It's about a choice between our own honour or his honour.
In this way, whatever comes our way—even 'trials' filled with temptations and Satan's schemes—is not cause for despair, but opportunities that God has promised to enable us to endure (1 Cor 10:13).
Thus, even in this season of a pandemic and all the other 'unexpected' circumstances of life, I am reminded (and a bit chastised) by what I need to learn once again from the emergence of this little mushroom:
God's purpose for unexpected trials is for his glory and our good….thus we can count them all joy!
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