Trials: A Welcomed Guest or a Despised Intruder?

James 1:2-3
"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives...don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends."

 This is perhaps the most eyebrow-lifting, counter-intuitive verse in the Bible.  Like...whaaa??  We are to welcome pain-inducing trials and soul-hijacking temptations as friends? With friends like this...who needs enemies!  These feel as intruders do; unwelcomed, unexpected, uncomfortable and upsetting. 

To see with the perspective that James writes with, it must have come from his years with Jesus. "Do not worry about anything.."  "Seek first his Kingdom...and all will be added to you as well..."  "Love and forgive enemies/those who trespass against us."

It seems apparent that Jesus saw trials and temptations as pregnant possibilities for reorienting our values, shifting our perspective away from ourselves, and strengthening our trust in the one who provides for us. Our unbelief is un-covered in trials, and the coverings of perceived success, comfort and self-life can be re-set, being freed from these false coverings to the kind of authenticity that we were always invited to come to God with.

To live the way Jesus invited us to, near to him, drawing life from him, will I accept trials as guests? Or will I react in my natural response of anger, powerlessness, and bitterness.

I had an opportunity to accept a trial and temptation this week.

The kids and I conspired to bless Tanya for Mother's Day with a gift we'd been plotting for years. A Roomba (automatic vacuum.) How awesome of a gift, especially with now TWO dogs in the house (even though both are not shedding...)  But, within 10 minutes of the FEDEX package arriving, it was immediately stolen off our porch, robbing both of the chance to bless Tanya on mother's day, also of a valuable gift.  The loss of money, and loss of a giving a gift, and loss of a dream of blessing Tanya stung like an unexpected wasp attack.

After reading James 1, how was I to handle it?  I allowed my honest feelings to work their way through, and ultimately decided to consider the loss a 'friend.'   Lord, how might you teach me about loss?  How can this frustration and loss give me a greater heart for those who experience losses more often than I do?  How can I recognize that our happiness is not found in 'stuff', but in the Lord.  So, yeah, not gonna lie, having the gift from the kids and I to Tanya stolen the day before Mothers' Day was really hard to take.  But, without being phony or fake, we really did decide to release the pain to God, and accept it, and find joy and welcomeness in our hearts.  We moved on. 

What is a trial, temptation, loss or pain that instead of treating like an intruder, YOU could welcome in as a friend?