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 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
• 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 source.

Recently, my kids have encouraged me to download an play the game Retrobowl, a NFL season simulator. In between games, the player 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. It is interesting to see these Bible principles embedded into modern American culture. These concepts are intuitively true and fundamentally understood by most people.

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 (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.