Jump Start # 391 

James 5:13 “Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.”

  The practical book of James tells us how to live. It’s not a book of theory, nor arguments, nor do we find fulfillment of prophecy, nor the grand process of salvation, but just instruction upon instruction about making our faith alive in our world. That’s what it’s all about. That’s the hard part of Christianity—it’s not the thinking part, it’s the doing part.

  Our verse today covers the broad range of emotions that we go through—suffering or cheerfulness. Suffering has a way of knocking the stuffin’ out of us. It knots our stomachs, causes doubts to arise in our hearts and makes us wonder how come. James began this book by talking about trials. There he told us that they will come and they come in various forms—multicolored is what the Greek word means. That’s just swell, isn’t it? It’s hard enough if there was just one kind of suffering, but there are many. James may have those trials in mind. He may also be thinking about persecution, the ultimate form of suffering. Either way, we just get the stuffin’ smacked out us.

  James tells the sufferers to pray. Pray because God is on the throne. Pray that you will be strengthened through the suffering. Pray that you will come out standing and strong.

  The other side of emotions is cheerfulness. Isn’t it amazing how many times in a day we ask, “How you doing?” I think sometimes we don’t really care and we just don’t know what else to say. There are days in which we are doing well. We feel well. We’ve accomplished much that day. We feel good in our faith and walk with the Lord. We are cheerful. We rejoice. In those occasions, James says, sing praises! Praise carries the idea of thanking God and complimenting God. It is realizing that the reason I am cheerful is because of the blessings of God.

  So there we are…miserable, either on the outside or the inside or both, or cheerful or most likely, a combination of both. Some may be leaning more toward the miserable side and others leaning more toward the cheerful side.

  What is interesting is how James found a way to include God in our lives no matter how we feel. Some days are so good. Those are times to pray. Other days are awesome. Those are days to sing praises. Either way, we are connecting to God. What a great concept. So often, we use how we feel as a measure of our connecting with God. If things are great, we will. But if things are so great, especially if we are on the suffering side of things, we tend to let that be a reason to remove God from our life. Not so, says James.

  The cheerful one is easy to understand. He feels good, things are going well, he’s in a great mood. It’s easy to sing praises. It’s the other one that gets us. When we’re suffering we don’t feel like much of anything. We especially need God. We become weak and vulnerable at such times. We need God. We tend to isolate ourselves. We need God. We get discouraged and want to quit. We need God.

  Praying and singing…those are the characteristics of a Christian.

  How are you feeling today? Have you connected to God? He’s wanting you to.

Roger