When he lovingly brings pastoral trials into our lives — and he does so lovingly — he is working for us and in us, one of the greatest goods imaginable. When He tests us, he is taking action to keep us. And He keeps us not just by protecting our present level of faith and not just by growing, enriching, developing, and maturing our faith. But in testing our faith, he is keeping us alive spiritually.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds . . . (James 1:2)

Trials of various kinds — that phrase from James 1:2 captures the wringer many pastors have been through in recent years.

We’ve seen troubles and known sorrows in settings big and small, urban and rural, and across denominations. These have been hard times for humans in general, particularly for pastors, given the nature and focus of our calling.

Yet, in our line of work, we dare not just grit our teeth and bear it. Not for long. Unlike other vocations, some tangible joy in the work is not optional but essential in pastoral labor. This is why a prerequisite for becoming a pastor-elder is that we aspire to the office and desire this work (1 Timothy 3:1). Hebrews 13:17 says that pastors who do their work with groaning rather than joy do not benefit their people. According to Peter, our shepherding the flock and exercising oversight must not be “under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you” (1 Peter 5:2). This is how our God himself cares for his sheep: from the heart, willingly, eagerly, not begrudgingly or under compulsion, not with groaning but with joy.

Count Sorrow as Joy?

Now, these truths can be both thrilling and devasting for pastors to rehearse — thrilling to realize our calling can and should spring from joy in our souls and devasting when we find our joy to be running on empty. If we stay empty long enough, we should begin to consider other work. Of course, pastoral joy is dynamic; it goes through ups and downs. We endure times and seasons where joy seems hard to come by, but in the big picture, to profit God’s people, we need to be men who labor from joy, in joy, for joy. As Paul thought of himself and his team as “workers for your joy” (2 Corinthians 1:24), our pastoral teams are to labor together from our joy, in our joy, for their joy.

But even in seasons of peace and quiet — unlike our recent years — pastoral joy doesn’t just happen. At the bottom, spiritual joy is a gift of God’s Spirit (Acts 13:52; Romans 14:17; 15:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:6), and it is received, enjoyed, and cultivated through God’s appointed means. One of those is our coming in time, even as pastors, to adopt God’s perspective more deeply on our pastoral troubles and sorrows and so learn to count, or reckon, our trials to be joy when they emphatically do not first feel like it.

To be sure, our hardships are not joyful in and of themselves. That’s part of what makes them hard. What could it mean, as pastors, to “count it all joy” in the pastoral circumstances and troubles we face?

Not Only Joy

When James charges us to “count it all joy,” he does not mean it all — all our pain, all our trials, all our hardship — is joy in and of itself. Pain is pain, not joy. Trials are trying, not direct, sources of pleasure.

Rather, what James has for us — and what the gospel of Christ provides — is a lens on life and a true vantage point on reality, through which even life’s most painful trials have a vital part to play in our joy.

And not just “even,” but “especially.” In God’s strange and wonderful ways of ruling this world, life’s most painful trials serve a special purpose for our good. God often draws his straightest lines from life’s greatest difficulties to our deepest and sweetest joys. Even for pastors — and perhaps especially for pastors.

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