"In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (I Pet.1:6-7)
You know, this life can be wonderful...but it can also be mighty hard. I have dear friends whose children are struggling with illness. Other dear friends who are sad and disappointed that their beloved child has to move to a distant country for her husband's work. Other friends and family dealing with different, but equally difficult, challenges and losses.
Oh my, haven't we all been there? In fact, aren't we all there now in some shape or fashion? Yep, the disappointments, the hurts, the losses, the failures vary...but the pain is just as real, just as sharp, and just as universal.
But for this we have Jesus.
I love these verses in Peter, for they remind us that our trials are temporary--as my Daddy used to say, "We're going through a rough patch." Love that--patches don't last...but persistent people do. We all eventually come out on the other side of a rough patch, praise God. And we find ourselves a little wiser, a bit stronger, and a lot more thankful. Nothing like a rough patch to remind you of what's really important and to exponentially increase your gratitude for life's simplest but most profound gifts.
Yes, trials are temporary, but our faith lasts forever and is revealed, refined, and strengthened by those struggles. And the ultimate result? Glory and praise to God. That sure helps me when it feels like I'm stuck in a deep ditch with no way out in sight. To know, know, know that somehow, someway, God will use my struggles and persevering faith to bring glory to His name.
Bu the key is, right in those hard moments, to counsel our hearts not to think or act based upon our feelings but based upon our faith. Feelings come and go based upon anything and everything from changing circumstances, to the weather, to what we ate for lunch, to how others treated us that day, to how much sleep we got. Totally unreliable! But not our faith. No, our faith is grounded securely upon rock solid Truth. Feelings vascillate. God's Truth is eternal, unchanging, supernaturally powerful, and supremely reliable.
Here's what A.W. Tozer says:
"I think all of us meet Christian men and women who always seem to look on the gloomy side and are never able to do anything with life's problems but grumble about them! I meet them often and when I do, I wonder: 'Can these people be reading and trusting the same Bible I have been reading?' The Apostle Peter wrote to the tempted, suffering, and persecuted believers in his day and noted with thanksgiving that they could rejoice because they counted God's promises and provisions greater than their trials! We do live in a sinful and imperfect world, and as believers in Christ we acknowledge that perfection is a relative thing now--and God has not really completed a thing with us, as yet! Peter testified that the persecuted and suffering Christians of his day were looking, in faith, to a future state of things immeasurably better than that which they knew, and that state of things would be perfect and complete!"
So today, I'm thankful for the solid ground of God's Word--both His written Word and His living Word, the Lord Jesus. God's Word will never fail us nor those that we love. No matter our circumstances, let's choose gratitude over grumbling today...we've got God's never-failing Word.
To God be the glory.
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