"Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience."
James 1:3
James had just written in the previous verse to “count it all joy” when all kinds of problems (temptations) overtake you. Those kinds of events we all dread, but if we handle them correctly, they can be the source of the blessing called “patience.”
“Knowing this,”
This knowledge is not the realm of the “theoretical.” That classroom discussion where the great ideas given were never tested in day to day life where people live. Those ideas that sounded so good on paper, or in the ivory towers, but there has been no practical living experience with them, they are still in the original wrapping. James is not going there, but he is talking about the knowledge gained by the experience of enduring grueling trials with joy and learning the lessons that God is teaching through those trials. Because of our previous experience with God leading us joyfully through these unspeakable trials, “knowing this….”
“That the trying of your faith.”
Can you see believers, that your faith will be tried (tested, proven)? And it will be done through “divers temptations?” (v. 2). Many and varied are these trials of our faith.
“The word for ‘trying’ implies at once a ‘test,’ and a ‘discipline’ leading to improvement.” [1]
“Worketh patience.”
Patience is that quality we need to persevere and push on through the difficulties of life. The New Testament word for “patience” [2] comes from two Greek words that mean to be “under,” and “to stay, abide.” Patience has “staying power,” this is “persistent endurance” that doesn’t just hunker down and take the blast of the storm, but it presses on, pushing forward, making progress in the wind.
“This word does not describe a passive waiting, but an active endurance. It isn’t so much the quality that helps you sit quietly in the doctor’s waiting room as it is the quality that helps you finish a marathon” [3] (Guzik).
Paul well understood the process of faith being tried. He wrote,
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:3-5).
Believers, in your trials, thank the Lord for His grace that helps you press on at the moment when you would rather quit. Be faithful and watch how God grows your patience.
[1] Cambridge Bible, the electronic version in eSword.
[2] Hupomonē, from hupo and meno.
[3] Guzik, David, David Guzik’s Enduring Word Commentary, the electronic version in eSword.