My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. James 1:2
Newer translations render this verse, ‘Count it all joy when ye fall into various trials’. Why? Because the Greek word for both ‘trial’ and ‘temptation’ is one and the same.
You see, what God will send or allow as a trial to strengthen our faith, Satan will seek to exploit to get us to sin. Conversely, what Satan throws our way as a temptation, God allows to be a trial. Satan wants to use the event to tear us down and wipe us out; God wants to use the same event to show us how faithful He is and how real He can be.
Think of it this way: If Jerry, a master woodworker, invited me to sit in a chair he had made, I wouldn’t do so wondering if it would hold me up, but rather marveling at how well it was crafted. If, on the other hand, our youth director, Tad, invited me to sit in a chair, I would be leery, knowing it would probably either be pulled out from or collapse underneath me.
So too, the chair that Satan seeks to pull out from under us is the very one God uses to show just how strong He can be.
In the Book of Job, we see Satan trying to wipe Job out by afflicting him physically, causing him to lose his family, and ruining him financially. But God was proving something else. God was showing how faithful He would be. As a result, all of history would marvel in studying how, in the midst of what Satan meant for evil, God used for good as He sustained Job all the way through, and rewarded him ultimately.
When a trial comes your way, Satan will be there the same day to try and get you to do what Mrs. Job suggested her husband do — to curse God and die (Job 2:9). But God will be there as well, waiting to show you His strength in seeing you through.
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