Words of

Words
of
Hope

By Dr. Jon Wilson

To Lasso the Trials of Life

With my son, Jonny Wilson, playing varsity basketball at Calabasas High School, we go to as many games as possible. They’ve recently beaten some very good high school teams, such as Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Westlake.

This season, the Calabasas team is winning and has moved up to its highest ranking ever. Actually, I think they could have a better record, but the coach chose to play the preseason against larger schools. 

As a result they’ve come into the Marmonte League season and have found that playing against teams such as last year’s state champion in a higher division and this year’s expected champion, has made them a stronger team when it comes to the regular season.

This is also true with football teams. When a football coach wants to build a good team, he doesn’t send it out on the field with soft pillows. He puts it to work against rough opponents. 
This is also true in life, if we approach it with the right attitude. The Apostle James is a "life coach." James was no armchair quarter-back. He was speaking from the perspective of one who’d been through difficult times. 

He was the brother of Jesus, who had watched Jesus go though persecution and false trials and he had watched him die at the hands of the Romans. 

James, himself, had been through a lot of difficult times. James tells us how to lasso the bucking, uncontrollable trials of life and ride them to wisdom and victorious spirituality. He instructs everyone how to suffer without becoming hardened.

God does the same thing to give us the strengths of steadfastness and patience in our character. He marches with us against tough opponents, against temptation, against public opinion, against discouragement and depression. 

In a somewhat different way, it’s the same principle that I heard from a grower who recently spoke at Woodland Hills Rotary.

It’s interesting to me that good fruit are produced only under the stroke of severity. Apples don’t grow where there’s no frost. There are no clouds on the Sahara Desert, but neither are there flowers. 

Tears are as important in the cultivation of the "fruit" in our lives, as rain is important to grow flowers and fruit.
James writes, "Consider it all joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." 

Rejoicing isn’t just positive thinking, but is based on some facts of life. 

A fact of life is that problems are inevitable. They’re a required course, whether in dating, marriage, sports, school or life in general. You don’t get out of them by saying you don’t want problems. 

Nobody is immune. In Scott Peck’s classic book, "The Road Less Traveled," the first sentence is "Life is difficult …" problems are inevitable.

If you don’t have problems, check your pulse. Problems are a fact of life. 

Problems are also unpredict-able. Trials are never planned. We seldom can anticipate the problems we’re going to experience. If we could anticipate them, we’d probably run the other way and get no benefit from them.

Problems can also be pur-poseful. Pain can be productive; suffering can accomplish something; they can fortify our patience.

James is talking about staying power—not passive patience, but staying power, endurance,  the ability to "keep on keeping on;" the ability to hang in there.

We live in a society that worships comfort, convenience and fast service. Everybody wants it now, if not yesterday. 

Endurance today is a rare quality. But we don’t like pressure and we do everything we can to avoid it. We run from it, take drugs, drink alcohol, take long vacations—anything to get away from pressure. Vince Lombardi once said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going,"—an old cliché, but still true.

Victor Frankl, Jewish psychologist who spent time in a Nazi concentration camp in Germany writes, "They stripped me naked. They took everything—my wedding ring, watch. I stood there naked and all of a sudden, at that moment, I realized that although they can take everything away from me—my wife, my possessions, my family—the one thing they couldn’t take away from me was my freedom to choose how I was going to respond
For some people, problems destroy them; others are made better.  You’ll either be bitter or better. The difference between bitter and better is "I"—I make the difference with my attitude. Problems break some people; they become bitter. Others grow stronger and wiser.

It’s how you choose to respond.

Rev. Jon Wilson, D.Min., lives in Calabasas and is senior pastor of Canoga Park Presbyterian Church in Canoga Park. Hear him speak on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Call him at the church office; (818) 883-3510.