What's your take away?

Recently I heard a teaching on James 1,"count it all joy when you encounter various trials", the end result is that we will be complete, lacking in nothing. Hallelujah, I want that! But what is the take away, that was the point of the lesson, what is it that God wants me to take away from my trial? There is something lacking in my life, and He wants to fix it, fill it, complete it. Hmmm. A totally new perspective on trials. He knows what I need and how to get me 'there' and guess what? Sometimes I need the trial. I don't like the trial. And I am certainly not at the jumping for joy phase in my christian walk where I see a trial and say, "Oh goodie, here comes another one!" Sometimes I feel like I am tumbling around in a giant wave, eating sand off the bottom of the ocean, gasping for air only to finally surface and get slammed by another one. I guess we all have seasons in our lives like that. We can't escape the hard stuff.

It occurs to me this morning that sometimes instead of embracing the trial, resting in the provisions and promises in the Bible, and looking for the lesson, the silver lining, the 'take-away'...I tiptoe around the trial and look for my own way of escape. You know what I'm talking about. There are a zillion ways to escape: self-medicate, deny, ignore, work, play, or pretend the trial away. But there is only one way to experience the grace, the heart and the comfort of Christ and that is to walk straight into it, eyes wide opened, wind and waves crashing and splashing...eyes fixed solely on Him. There is no other way. There is peace in the middle of the storms of life, the waves that rock my boat, and the trials that seem insurmountable...there is grace too. He never asks us to do anything that He hasn't already made provision for. So today, I am asking for grace for me and for you. Grace to see His perspective. Grace to rest in His provisions. Grace to walk empty-handed into my trial, offering it up to Him. Grace. Simply grace.