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James 1:12 “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” NIV

 

I hate tests, particularly exams! They were the looming wall that overshadowed the freedom of summer. In addition, exams were the ultimate indicator of whether you had actually been listening in class the whole year. To add to this burden, many of these exams represented a large portion of your final mark.

 

This meant very little to me until I was in post-secondary education and I was paying lots of money for these classes.

 

I distinctly remember my first year in college when I had eight exams in seven days and my last exam represented 70% of my final mark. I remember spilling my brain info contents onto paper for six consecutive days like a person would wring a wet sponge into a bucket every day. The problem was that by day seven the sponge was done and, although I had studied, the continuous stress of writing tests, combined with the lack of sleep and over indulgence of jolt cola (the yesteryear equivalent to Red Bull), I was sitting at a desk with an exam worth 70% of my final mark and my mind went blank.

 

At this point you usually hear a story of supernatural knowledge overwhelming me and me leaving the exam room with both arms in the air praising Jesus for his miraculous intervention. I puttered my way to a passing grade but it was ugly. And, truth be told, sometimes, many times, that is the way life is. Life can be ugly…

 

The truth is that God never really did offer us a rose garden did He? Sometimes it seems that he leaves us high and dry. There are dark days. There are seasons where there are more bad days than good. We have gotten sick, suffer depression, and have bad things happen. Worse, we even see terrible things happen to our children that we can not help with. Sometimes our happily ever after ends with divorce and significant loss.

 

Many times I have found myself with too much month at the end of the money. I have been treated unfairly and lived with the scars of abandonment and rejection. Some terrible instances have threatened to define me and consume me. Persevering trials are something we will all relate to eventually. But as I look back, God has never left me and there were times when He was all that I could hold on to.

 

That word persevere is almost as bad as that word exam. Sometimes the two words are interchangeable. It is God saying do you really trust me? Are you going to serve me even when the weather is not good?  Will you hold on to me even in the storm? Will your love still be strong for me even when things don’t go your way? Or is your love conditioned on what you can get out of God?

 

Maybe you are on day three of a seven day exam season. James says that, fortunately there is an end prize that should be the focus…a crown of life. The warm relief of summer after that last exam.  It is amazing how the Lord can say something so powerful through James in just one verse.