Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

James 1:2-3

I clung to this verse when I was wrongly accused of cheating in a class in high school. My Christian reputation was in tatters. I was stripped of all my honor society club memberships. But while I clung to it, I didn't understand it.

Pure joy?

Am I the only one who thought James might have been smoking something when he penned those words?

I had focused on the latter part of the verse. "Trials of many kinds." I knew that I was in the middle of one of the hardest trials I had ever faced. The looks. The giggles. The disappointment.  I just wanted to persevere through it all with a faith tested and refined like gold.

The part of the verse I never understood - couldn't grasp because it's so counter-intuitive - was to consider my trials with joy. And not just any joy...pure joy.

In my younger days, I mistakenly thought that only one emotion could accompany a trial based on this verse. But rarely is anything that cut and dry. Our emotions are tangled and convoluted. We cry when we're happy and laugh when we're mad.

Just because James didn't mention the other emotions doesn't mean they can't be present. It's okay to be sad, embarrassed, and frustrated. I think the lesson from this verse should be not to let those other, negative emotions overwhelm the joy.

Joy in the circumstance of trial is cerebral - we'll find it in our minds, not our hearts. Jeremiah tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things, so it is not wise to put confidence in our feelings. We should instead rely on the knowledge that all things work to the good of those who love the Lord. (Yes, that includes being accused of cheating when you did not do so.)

Essentially, this is a cognitive exercise. Every time we are tempted to focus on the negative emotion, we have to train our brains to think like an optimist.

Here are two questions to ask yourself or to ask your child who is facing a challenge right now:

1. What could possibly be positive about this event? Is there a bright side? (Ok, maybe a lesser-dark side?) It might be easier to look down the road for the good that could come from the trial, because our earthly perspective is limited. When we're going through the trial, it's interminably long and defeating, but from God's heavenly perspective, the trial is fleeting -"light and momentary." 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 reads, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen (the trial) but on what is unseen (the eternal glory). For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." I've added the parentheses to show you the importance of looking up instead of looking out.
2. If your trial were happening to someone else, what words of encouragement would you give them? Taking a step back from our emotional reactivity is hard to do. In fact, we might not be able to fully detach ourselves. We're invested in our problem; it affects many aspects of our lives. But looking at it with more objectivity can help us through it. In order to do this, we'll need to call on our Christian friends for support to help us see through our biases.

James 1:2-3 indicates just one emotion we should feel; it's not an exhaustive list. Negative emotions are permissible, they just shouldn't eclipse the heavenly joy God wants us to experience. While joy in suffering might not be something we feel with our heart, we can make the mental choice to feel it with God's strength.

Jeannie Campbell is a Christ-follower, wife, mother and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, in that order. She got her masters of divinity in psychology and counseling from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and her bachelors in psychology and journalism from The University of Mississippi. She's a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and American Christian Fiction Writers. In her spare time, she writes feature articles for magazines and local newspapers and blog posts for The Character Therapist. Email Jeannie.