How Do Pastors ‘Count It All Joy’?

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. And not just in the long run but even during trials. When trials assault our surface pleasures, we’re pressed to consider our deepest, fullest, richest treasures — and to tap those roots for sustenance in ways we simply do not when all is well.

Also, James does not say, “Count it only joy.” We wince. We hurt. We may even wail. We ask, “How long, O Lord?” God does not expect us to receive our trials as only joy. Christians, of all people — and pastors modeling it for our people — should be most ready to receive pain as pain, tragedy as tragedy, sorrow as sorrow. We count, or reckon, our trials as joy because we don’t simply feel them naturally to be so. We have spiritual reckoning to do.

Not just the small stuff 

Don’t think that James only has little trials in view here. He says “trials of various kinds” because he means the big ones, too. It can be easy to see how God is at work in life’s little inconveniences, but our greatest tragedies press the hardest, darkest questions on our souls. 

Has God abandoned me? Is he really in charge and also good? Is he even there?

James will not have us relegate his charge to “count it all joy” simply to the easy stuff. The issue at stake is the hardest things — the “trials” of tragedy, loss, distress, despondency, and long-term despair—the trials many of us have encountered as pastors in recent years.

How do you reckon?

James 1:2 may be straightforward enough, but our souls need more than just a command to own this and see it come to life in us. Our minds and hearts need reasons, or at least a reason, which James supplies in what immediately follows.

We could rehearse many of the clear biblical reasons why we can “count it all joy” when encountering various trials. “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). We can write over every trial, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). And we can say with the apostle, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Or with Jesus, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12).

But James has something specific in mind: “for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:3). And steadfastness is a particular virtue Christ means to work in his pastors.

Christ keeps us

“Steadfastness” is not a word we use frequently today. Another word for it would be endurance. Endurance alone isn’t necessarily desirable (for instance, enduring in error). What makes it compelling is what we endure in. And what James has in view is very clear: faith in Christ. And for Christians, enduring in faith is what life is all about — and how much more in pastors?

In other words, one of the things God is doing when he tests our faith is preserving us. 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.

God’s preserving work in us through our pain and difficulty is essential to what matters most, and James makes that connection explicit: “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).

Especially for pastors

Faith, particularly the faith of pastors, does not flourish when it lies untested. It atrophies when it goes unexercised. So, when God loves us with his saving love and gives us saving faith, he commits, because he cares for us, to inject our lives with various trials to train, grow, sweeten, strengthen, and mature what matters most in us. And when He calls us to the pastoral office, we might assume he intends to challenge us all the more.

Our “various trials” in pastoral ministry are not superfluous to our enduring in faith and continuing in ministry. And they are not just threats to losing our faith and our effectiveness. They are one of God’s essential means through which he preserves the faith he has given us, keeps us as his own, and sustains us as pastors.

Serious joy

So, pastors, “count it all joy” does apply to the distinctive challenges of pastoral ministry. And “count it all joy” doesn’t mean we take our pastoral pains and pressures lightly or pretend they are trivial. They are real. They are painful. They do bring us troubles and sorrows. They tempt us to give in or give up.

But neither do we take joy lightly. Fickle and dynamic as it can be, some real measure of joy is critical in our calling. And we, of all people, have not been left without resources for this — applying first to our souls the very Word God has called us to preach and teach.

©2023 David Mathis. Used with permission.