How to have it all

Do you want to “have it all?”

Or, would you be happy just to have what you want to have?

How do you do that? How to you get that?

I can’t think of a time in my life when having what I wish to have seemed harder than now. I can’t think of a time in my life when I was more afraid of not having what I wish to have. COVID, culture wars, and recession could last months or years. I can’t even have just some of the life I want; so having it all feels like a fool’s dream these days.

What about you?

In the ancient Christian scriptures, we find a letter that an old teacher, James, wrote to some apprentices and students of Jesus Christ. He wrote to them because they were going through bad times. Their hopes were fading fast under a gathering storm of threats to their very lives.

So James wrote them a letter. He hoped pen on paper would turn into wind in their sails.

In the first lines of his letter, he got to the point: Do you want to have it all? Do you want to be “mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4)?

Here’s how you do it: You keep going in hard times. James used the word “endurance” (James 1:2-3). Being “complete,” having it all, is what you get when you “take a lickin’ but keep on tickin’.”

James had a word for this simple choice to stick to it–to keep living life in the face of death itself. The word is “faith.”

Faith, the way James had it, is not like a magic spell, spiritual high, or state of trance that makes everything seem OK. No, faith is what happens every time a person makes the choice to keep living when it seems like everything is dying. Faith is a choice.

So James wrote to his fast-fading friends: Just keep making the choice to live. In every moment. In every situation. With each step you take. Choose to live. Make this choice and it will be faith. You will endure.

And you can be sure that you will have it all (“be complete, lacking nothing”) (James 1:4).

For this reason, James said that going through hard times is something to enjoy (James 1:2)! It is in hard times that little daily choices to live are acts of courage, acts of heroism.

The easiest thing to do is to let the bad times control how we act, feel, and think. Who wants to hear a story like that, let alone live that story?

But James said a great story is when we choose to live when everything feels like death. A story that is complete. A story that brings enjoyment. A story that is yours if you choose it moment by moment (faith).

Do you want to “have it all?”

Keep choosing to live in this moment. And this moment. And this moment. And every moment until you get through this.

And coming out on the other side, you will be “mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Grace and peace.