¹³Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.

We now pivot to a critical and often controversial passage on healing. Our verse today sets the tone and the context. Suffering and cheerfulness are set in contrast and cover the entirety of human experience, the lows and the highs. We recall from James 5:10 the suffering of the prophets as a motivational example toward patience. The lexicons give descriptions of the second word as “delight” or “in good spirits.” All human emotions are in view here.

Human emotions are real and not to be easily dismissed. Sometimes in our efforts to be spiritually minded, we can inadvertently deny or stuff our emotions in an attempted exercise of self-control. Yet nowhere does Scripture say we should or can deny our emotions. Sooner or later they will break out and affect our decisions in life.

So how do we deal with them? James tells us very succinctly to focus our minds and hearts on God. If we are suffering, then pray to God. If we are cheerful, then praise God (and do it emotionally with singing). Along the spectrum of our emotional responses to various life situations, we need to develop the habit, the commitment to speak to our own souls, as David the psalmist wrote three times:

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence. (Ps 42:5, see also 42:11, 43:5)

Life tries to put us “under the circumstances;” doubts and temptations tend to lead us to see obstacles, conflicts, misfortunes, and suffering as controlling us and putting us on an unfortunate path outside of God’s best life for us. Faith in God, though, leads us to see His hand in our lives as overriding all of our experiences. Things don’t just happen to us, as though they compete with God. But God “happens to us” in every area of life, both in the lows and the highs. He is the ultimate cause, the architect and the guiding hand in every detail of our lives.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:6)

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

Lord, I depend on You in my need, and I praise You in my blessings.