How to Count it All Joy

A Curious Command

In the first chapter of James, God gives us a command that is easy to comprehend, but difficult to implement. The twelve tribes addressed in this letter were scattered abroad because of persecution during the early days of the church. This would hardly be a circumstance for joy, yet James implores them to seek it out and choose a joyful response anyway. What if we don’t feel joyful? How do we grow to a point where we can easily respond this way?

The answer to these questions is also found in scripture and the breadcrumbs for us to follow begin in the book of Proverbs.

The Heart

In the 1950’s Walt Lillehei cracked the code for performing open heart surgery without damage to the brain or other major organs with his discovery of the “azygos factor”. He clamped all the veins returning blood to the heart in canine test subjects except the small azygos vein, which only returned 8-10% of the blood flow back to the heart. After 30-40 minutes of living on only a small fraction of the normal blood volume, these dogs recovered and showed no signs of damage to the brain or other vital organs.

This opened the door for surgeons to safely access an organ deep inside the chest cavity using a small trickle of oxygenated blood pumped in from the outside from a human donor initially and ultimately the same bubble oxygenator machines in use today.

Thinking is something we normally associate with the mind. When it is paradoxically associated with another organ, like the heart, it seems out of place. However the heart in scripture represents our deepest and innermost self, completely invisible and inaccessible to the outside world just like the physical heart was to surgeons in the 20th century.

Proverbs 23:7 offers immense insight on our thinking and how it affects our behavior in an easily ignored phrase buried in eight connected verses of instruction for the young man.

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he

This phrase of course is in reference to the wealthy ruler of Proverbs 23 who lives for himself, riches, and power and offers this erroneous way of living as a role model to the young man who sits “to eat” at his table. But the truth of this short phrase applies to all mankind, rich or poor, evil or good. We are what we think.

This forms a Biblical thesis statement that is repeated throughout scripture in various ways, although probably most famously in Romans 12:2.

Because our thinking is what drives our behavior, if we want to experience real, lasting change in our lives we must start with a mind renewal. Our way of thinking has to change and as soon as it does who we are changes in that moment too.

Of course, a change in our mind might not be readily apparent or obvious to anyone looking in from the outside. But the principle stated here teaches us that we are different the moment we begin to think differently and the outside will catch up readily in time.

We see this example in Proverbs 23 as well. The wealthy ruler who tries to entice the young man to follow his ways says something different from what he thinks. The words sound nice, “eat and drink” but internally, in his heart, he thinks differently.

And as we are learning it does not take long for the evil thoughts of this mans heart to produce fruit accordingly. The sweet words are lost and replaced with regret for having listened and followed at all and the twisted intentions buried deep within ultimately cannot be hidden for long.

Thinking, Behavior, Feelings (Repeat)

The cycle begins with our thoughts which determine our behavior. We then reap what we sow with our actions which determines our feelings (either good or bad) which then reinforces how we think.

A good example is this encouragement from U.S. Navy Admiral William McRaven in what has become a virally shared video from a commencement speech.

If you think like William McRaven it will change your behavior and you too will begin to make your bed which will result in the small feelings of accomplishment he describes which will further reinforce your thinking and you will continue the pattern in a positive direction.

This feedback loop is self-reinforcing and usually requires an external catalyst to change the cycle. Consider the dilemma of whether or not to work out.

• Thinking: “I need to work out”
• Behavior: Goes to the gym
• Feelings: Accomplishment, reward, energy, etc…

This person will continue the positive path because the feelings produced from the thinking and behavior positively reinforce the original thought process.

In the converse example, the opposite is true.

• Thinking: “I can work out tomorrow”
• Behavior: Skip the gym
• Feelings: Slothfulness, disappointment, regret, I’ll never make progress

The negative feelings make this person less likely to make a positive decision on the following day.

Attitude or Skill?

In his classic speaking series, See You at the Top, Zig Ziglar engaged his audience in an exercise to demonstrate the power and importance of a positive thought life. He asked the audience to shout out any desirable quality or attribute that they would want to see in either an employee working beneath them (or alongside) or a manager that they reported to.

The audience helpfully shouted out suggestions like:

• Diligence
• Kindness
• Showing up on time
• Positive attitude
• Hard working
• Fast learner
• Easy to get along with
• Intelligent
• Team player

…and many others as well.

Zig then addressed each suggestion in detail and asked the audience to vote if the item on the list was an attitude inherent to the person or a skill that they had learned. Overwhelmingly (with a few exceptions) it became obvious that the best employees and managers where those with exemplary attitudes and not necessarily those with the best skills.

Without using a single reference to the scriptures, Zig proved the Biblical thesis that our thinking (our attitude) is so important as a driver of our behavior that we instinctively, and almost exclusively, use it as a benchmark for judging the economic worth of an individual in the workplace.

Truly we are what we think, and everything else flows downhill from that premise.

Recently, my kids have encouraged me to download and play the game Retrobowl, a NFL season simulator. In between games, the you will occasionally have the opportunity to sign free agents. Here’s an example of an opportunity that came up for me.

The player in question sometimes has strong physical attributes, but if the impact on the team morale is toxic, it isn’t worth adding the player to your roster. Your thinking is so important that it impacts those around you as well.

It is interesting to see these Bible principles embedded into modern American culture. These concepts are intuitively true and fundamentally understood by most people to the point where they can be incorporated into a mobile game.

Why then do we not place a higher emphasis on our thinking and encourage other believers to begin with a renewing of the mind when chasing after lasting change?

Categorize All as Joy

Let’s now return to the command that James gives persecuted Jewish christians in the first century AD. Count it all joy! But how? Of course we know now that the first step is a renewed mind and a fundamental shift in our thinking.

First, though, it is worth understanding what James means by “divers temptations”. After all, Jesus was not joyful when he was tempted of Satan in the wilderness. In the Lords prayer, Jesus himself warns us to pray for deliverance from temptation and not for a spirit of joy during it!

Thankfully we do not have to be Bible scholars or understand Greek like Erasmus to know what James is talking about. Very simply, a temptation is a situation where your faith in God and his word is tried (or tested) in a prolonged way that requires a patient response. This can be manifest in many different ways, hence the “divers” part of the phrase.

I think of David who was anointed by God to be the king of Israel yet had to wait many years with patience while his faith in God’s promise was tested over and over again. When he could have short circuited the process by destroying Saul, he again chose to be patient and trust God rather than lift his hand against the Lord’s anointed.

It is in moments like these where James asks us to leave behind the opportunity for bitterness, anger, frustration, victimhood, self-pity, and disillusionment in favor of the ultimately Christian attitude of joy.

What does “Count it” mean?

Every corporation of significant size hires an accountant to prepare the financial statements, file and pay taxes, and audit all records for accuracy. As new transactions are created by the company, the accountant will have an opportunity to decide how to “count” or categorize that transaction.

A transaction at the Macaroni Grill would “count” under the Meals and Entertainment category. Other common categories would be capital expenditures, payroll, cost of goods sold (COGS), etc…

Sometimes discretion can be used to determine how to count something. For example, a subscription to Audible can be categorized as “Continuing Education”, a gym membership as “Employee Health Expenditures”, or a family vacation to Barbados as “Sales Travel” (although unlikely to successfully bring on new clients 😅).

This creative accounting is what James is asking us to do with each circumstance we face. As the accountants of our lives we get to choose to be creative, if we wish, on how we “count” these events. Specifically he asks us to categorize any time we have our faith tried and our patience tested as joy.

What is Joy?

Definitions matter and joy certainly has been defined and redefined many times. It’s not the same thing as happiness otherwise James would have used that word. The dictionaries seem to coalesce on a concept of joy being the feeling we get when we expect something good.

You don’t have the good right now, but you expect it and therefore you are borrowing some of that future feeling of good in your life. In two words it’s anticipatory happiness, or maybe a loan analogy makes more sense. Joy is borrowing future happiness that you haven’t yet experienced.

Each weekend, I take a trip to Starbucks in the morning for coffee for myself and my wife. I’ve learned to anticipate the good feelings that come from treating oneself to such an oral delight and can feel joy (future borrowed happiness) on my way there.

John took it a step further in 1 John 1:4 where he explained that the purpose of his letter was to explain the hope of Christ in salvation to a point where our joy could be made full.

For a Christian, this loan is easy to take and is guaranteed to be paid back in eternity with Christ on the new earth experiencing the fulness of joy promised to every believer. In this sense, we have an unlimited credit line of future happiness we can borrow to experience here on this earth. That is joy and that is the category James calls on us to file all experiences where our faith is tested and our patience stretched.

RE: Attitude or Skill?

Remember Zig’s audience exercise? How would you classify “Counting it all Joy?” is it an attitude or a skill? I think we can agree that it certainly falls more on the attitude side of the spectrum. This is something anyone can have if they have the right thinking. No college degree required, there is no reading assignment, you just have to have the right mindset!

The Present Reward

We discussed that the believer can experience joy in any circumstance by borrowing from his future eternal happiness on the new earth, but James doesn’t stop there and insist that we only continue to take out long term loans that won’t mature for decades.

To the contrary, James indicates that we can have joy knowing that even in the present, we can expect to see fruit in our life if we choose to do this. The fruit actually seems preposterous on first examination. James boldly claims that the Christian who counts all trying of their faith as joy can expect to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

It’s a little hard to believe James!

But a bold claim from the word of God demands our fullest consideration. Is it possible that a believer can be made perfect and want nothing if they embark on this journey of counting all trying of our faith as joy?

Outside of dealing with sin, the hardest thing you will face as a Christian are trials that tempt you to doubt the Lord. Everyone has been through some event like this. It could be the loss of a loved one, a catastrophic loss of wealth or income, declining health, relationships that tear apart, imprisonment, torture, unjust treatment, etc… The history books (and the Bible) are filled with examples of these events impacting Christians. Peter lost faith to the point where he denied his savior three times. We’ve all had our Peter moments and if not, yours is likely coming soon.

A good example is marriage. God asks men and women to do things for and to each other in marriage that are supposed to produce a happy union. In reality it often takes much trying of our faith to continue to do those things (when it doesn’t seem to be working) and patience to wait on God for the results.

God asks us to honor him with our money, but after giving God a percent of the first fruits of all your increase, an unexpected bill arrives in the mail or you lose your job and you begin to wonder if God ever noticed that you put him first at all.

In the context of the book of James, God asked early church believers to assemble together to worship him, yet that could have resulted in imprisonment or death for those who trusted God enough to do it. American Christianity doesn’t understand this kind of persecution for something we take for granted.

James is saying that the Christian who can trust God’s word and hang on to it with patience when nothing seems to be working has everything he needs to handle anything else in life. He is perfect or complete. I think I agree!

How to Change Your Thinking

If you’ve made it this far, you might agree that our thinking is what we should guard, improve, and work on as our highest priority. We are what we think. But how do we change our thinking? If you are a pessimistic person and willing by default to ascribe all suffering and trials as unfair and worthy of pity, how do you change your thinking so that you can be someone who counts all as joy?

We Need God

The first thing you must realize is that you won’t be very successful if you try to change your thinking alone.

In his book Changed Into His Image Jim Berg makes the argument that we are all completely dependent on God. The more we recognize and embrace this dependence and call on God to help us further, the more we will grow as a Christian. The more we discard God, deny our neediness, and choose our own path the more we falter as a Christian.

Which direction are you moving? Are you embracing your God-Dependence or fueling your God-Independence?

We cannot change our thinking in a life changing way without the constant renewing of our mind that comes from God.

Some Practical Tips

To “renew” implies repetition. We are made new at the moment of salvation when we become new creatures, but our minds must be “renewed” on a regular basis for us to continue the transformation into the image of Christ. This renewal will best be delivered from an external source that flows from God into our lives.

The first and most obvious is a daily habit of Bible reading. This isn’t only important because of the positive habit and daily spiritual nourishment, but also because each time God’s word enters your mind it starts the renewal process again in your life. If you do this daily, you will eventually be compeltely transformed.

The second tip is to be at church and expose yourself to the preaching of God’s word as often as possible. The church has many benefits, but aside from fellowship, service, and learning, we can have our minds renewed by God’s transformative word through the preaching and teaching of the Bible each week.

Thirdly, we must take scripture and memorize enough of it to meditate on it throughout the day. If Bible reading produces a daily renewal experience, and church a weekly one, scripture memorization can cause a renewal of your mind every moment you recall it to your consciousness.

And last, we can declare the new intentions of our renewed mind and ask others to hold us accountable. This is why Baptism is of such importance for the new believer. They are declaring to a body of saints that they are followers of Christ and can now be held accountable by others to that creed.

If you tell your wife or husband, “The next time my faith is tried, I’m going to try to Count it all Joy instead of feeling self pity.” Now you’ve committed to some action and others can hold you to it. Our pride does not want to allows us to go back on our word.

Final Thoughts

The battle for your soul is being fought in your mind. If you feed the flesh and fill your thinking with instagram, spotify, netflix, and youtube, you will find yourself on the losing end of battle after battle.

But if you take the time to purposely renew your mind every week, every day, and every moment (that you can) with the word of God, you will find that what seemed impossible to do becomes possible and even easy and then God can get the glory from your life.

My brethren, count it all joy!