Count It All Joy
You win or you learn.
Success is great and I enjoy it very much. But I know that I grow more from failure.
One of my core values is to have a Count It All Joy Mindset. You might recognize that from the first chapter of James:
“…count it all joy when you fall into various trials,” (James 1:2).
Why? Why would someone count it all joy when things don’t succeed?
“…that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:5).
Various trials make you more perfect and more complete.
They add to you. They don’t take away from you.
If you lift weights, you’ll be sore the next day. But is that soreness adding muscle or taking away muscle? It’s adding.
That’s why sore muscles can feel good. Not because they actually feel good, but because you know what’s really happening.
I don’t like changing diapers, but I love having kids. And my dislike for changing diapers is so small compared my love of having kids, that I effectively love changing diapers.
The Count It All Joy Mindset, which is just James 1:2-5, is a reframing of the entire cosmos.
Even the worst thing that ever happened in all of history—the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the sinless Son of God—was also the most glorious thing that ever happened.
Man’s greatest failure was God’s greatest success. And that success dwarfs the failure.
“…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
Jesus Himself counted it all joy because He saw what was beyond the trial of the cross.
What do you think?
Joseph