Day 27: Friday 3/20

READ: James 1:2-4 (revisit)

My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing.

REFLECT 

We return to where we began. Trials — persecution, marginalization, the cost of resistance — produce perseverance. Perseverance produces maturity. This isn't about enjoying suffering or spiritualizing injustice. It's about trusting that God is at work in it. As we near the final stretch of Lent, we might be tired of the cost, weary of how long liberation takes. James says: let perseverance finish its work. Don't bail before you see the growth.

RESPOND 

Where are you tempted to give up on something God is growing in you? Recommit today.

PRAY 

God who makes us whole, when we're tired of the cost, remind us what you're forging in us. Amen.