What does it look like when we walk through seasons of trial and tribulation, when we carry pain and we choose to not avoid that pain, but we choose to let Jesus the way, the truth and the life, into those places? What does it look like when we allow him to utilize those difficult things for our good and for his glory.
Follow along by listening below starting at 16:55.
How We Can Lack Nothing
Gina:
A beautiful thing. James 1 says, “Count it all joy, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” I think it’s easy for us to kind of gloss over that and go, “Oh, you’ll be perfect.”
Which if in a religious mindset is like, “Be perfect in the outward.” But what, what this really is saying, is the “lacking nothing”. I’ve met the Father there. So now the next trial that comes, I don’t need anything because I’m completely dependent. My identity is sure. My understanding of His faithfulness is deep and true. Now I don’t lack anything.
Which goes back to the Psalm 1 and goes back to Jeremiah 17, the being planted, your roots that go deep so that when the sun comes, and when the winds come, your leaf isn’t going to wither, you’re not going to fall over, because you are planted by the streams of living water, your roots have gone deep, and you’re you’re completely solid.
Justin:
And according to Psalm 1, whatever he does prospers. We’re not talking about just endurance, we’re talking about what happens on the other side of that. This is wisdom literature. Here’s the wrong way to do it. Here’s the right way to do it. Here’s the curse that follows doing the wrong thing. Here’s the blessing that comes with doing the right thing.
They’re all equally real, but the blessing is real. So whatever he does is prosperous. So when I’m in the middle of my pain, am I sitting thinking about how I’m going to prosper? No. My initial response is not that at all. But if my delight is in the law of the Lord and I can meditate on it, which basically means to murmur that Scripture to myself, and to speak it to myself. To have it be in the depths of who I am on the tablets in my heart.
If I can meditate on the law of the Lord day and night, I will be like that tree, and yielding fruit in my season, which means there’s gonna be a season of pruning and difficulty. But in season you will yield and then you will prosper. So my pain is actually the beginning of my prosperity.
Not as anything other than prosperity, in blessing in resonance and living in congruence with who God says I am, which is therefore best for me. Which my flesh chooses the opposite. So this is crazy to think about, right? So my pain literally is the beginning of my prosperity, IF, I can yield to the Spirit.
Gina:
That’s a big “If”.
Justin:
There’s a lot of people for so many reasons, they choose to go the wrong way, and I’ve been there too.
Meditating on The Word of God
Gina:
You hit a lot of things talking about delighting in the law of the Lord. You talked about marinating, like sitting in that. When I teach, I talk a lot about, you know, worship, reading the word and prayer. Those are the things that cultivate our intimacy with Jesus.
We could read it -that’s part of it. Then you can memorize it, which is part of getting in it. There’s something that comes with meditation. And like you said, that murmuring, where it becomes a part of your DNA.
It’s not just something that you’ve memorized, like you can mindlessly sing the lyrics to a song, to the radio in your car. It goes deeper than that because now it’s a part of you, it’s part of who you are. It starts to inform you. Those are the things that start to seep out in the dry and thirsty places. Now, suddenly that wellspring is coming from within, because it’s part of you.
Justin:
And that Word “informed” means I’m being inwardly formed. I’m being formed on the inside, through something. If you build something that’s strong on the inside, it can endure. It’s simple logic, but spiritually it’s so difficult for us to long suffer through our pain, and allow the Spirit to do its work in the situation, or with the hurt, or with the person, or circumstance.
Then seeing the result of the Spirit’s workings. We don’t want to wait. I think that’s why the Psalmist says “I waited patiently for the Lord.” And sometimes I wonder if that’s like a half complaint.
Gina:
Beautiful. I waited patiently.
Justin:
Well, like any major change that’s happened in our life, we always have to wait longer than we’ve had to. Otherwise it’s not called endurance. If it’s in my pocket of what I’m able to do, it extends beyond and I think that’s a huge piece.
Gina:
Since we were talking about Psalms, can we go back to the beginning of Psalms? Because I think there’s some things that are super powerful, and I think are such good warnings for us.
Justin:
There is that progression there and it doesn’t take too many passes through Psalms 1 to see that there’s a progression there. Who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. So blessed is the man that doesn’t do those things.
This Psalm was probably meant to be the framework for the book of Psalms, rather than have a title “Psalm 1” labeled over it. So a lot of wisdom literature works like that, but it’s humbling to think about how easy it is, when operating in the flesh, that we can begin to walk amongst those, stand amongst those, and then sit amongst those, who ultimately are against the things of the Father.
What are You Letting Influence You?
Gina:
Just to clarify that this isn’t saying to never talk to an unbeliever, or saying don’t hang out with them, but quite the opposite. This is talking about who is influencing you. A couple days ago you said a phrase when we were talking about the Dwell project that we’re working on, “What are you becoming?”
So it really is about influence, it’s about what we’re allowing to speak into us. So there’s something about walking with somebody, and it hearkens to almost having a conversation, and advice, and then there’s the sitting down and really letting someone influence you. It’s this slippery slope and a kind of progression.
Justin:
Yeah, into being pretty much immobile and stuck in a way. I think that the word “Way” is important. That’s why I often refer to Jesus as the Way Truth and the Life, because when I say “Jesus”, it’s important, but I refer to Jesus who says, He’s the Way, Truth and Life.
I’ve said it several times in this already, that we’ve been talking about, but it’s not hanging out with the wicked or with sinners or scoffers, and making sure you draw this legalistic line in the sand, but it is about:
Don’t find yourself yielding in your heart to the way truth and life of the wicked, the way, truth and life of a sinner, the way truth and life of those who scoff at the Lord. It is about influence. It is about what’s feeding us. And in regard to what we’ve been talking about- in pain, and “the season of pain” I will call it.
That season can be short or long, but this season of pain that comes and with our fleshly disposition, if we don’t keep watch over it, we will find ourselves before we realize it, before we can recognize it, in little mini seasons of walking with those and being fed by those that are wicked, or standing with those, being in the way of sinners, and then sitting with that influence, then you already consumed the way truth in life of this world that Jesus overcame.
Then soon enough that becomes our meditation. The walking, the standing, the sitting, with the wicked, the sinners, the scoffers becomes the meditation for us. You’ll know a tree by its fruit. The fruit that you will produce, will show where someone’s heart is.
That is where their treasure is. And if their heart is taken up with the wicked, sinners, and the scoffers, because their pain is driving them to try and find answers outside of the things of God. In the flesh to get the quick satisfaction, it turns into a season and you set your delight in being fed by and being ministered by things that aren’t even from the Father, and they’re confirming your pain.
Gina:
They’re not lasting comforts.
Justin:
And you feel with those people, they finally understand me, therefore I understand myself, because that’s what that really means. I can accept me if they all do In my pain dude. So you’re falling in love with things that are not the One who is love, which is the Father.
You’re courting these people in your life and that’s why the solution is in Psalm 1, but His delight is in the law of the Lord. Delight is like a soul level happiness, a soul level blessedness. So an emotionally stimulated quick fix. It’s emotion, but it’s emotion birthed from truth and from spiritual life. So his delight is in the law, which is basically the life giving teachings of the ways of God.
Check out the rest of the conversation: Navigating Pain With God & The Transformation of Pain
Check out the Dwell Meditations
