This too shall pass. . . well, some of it will!

Reverence is catching. Years ago we were members of Grace Community Church. For a few Sundays, a guest preached on 1 Peter 1. He loved the passage, loved the Lord, and his devotion brought a holy hush into the room. Whenever I read 1 Peter 1, I can still hear his Scottish accent and the reverence in his voice.

I heard it this morning. I also heard the Holy Spirit giving me this section for encouragement and comfort. The past few months have been difficult. Things may not improve soon. Nevertheless, the Lord is not making mistakes with my life.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Would anyone trust the Lord if there were no danger, no trials? We tend to reach out to God when life is tough, and circumstances are more than we can handle. But at least we reach out. If nothing else, trials prove faith.

They also develop spiritual muscle. The situations that I’m experiencing now would have put me into a basket twenty years ago, had not the Lord allowed other trials and difficulties. In working through those, I’ve become a stronger person.

Yet I cannot boast. I know where my strength comes from. Without Jesus, I am helpless and hopeless. For that reason, the next section of 1 Peter 1 is so wonderfully true: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Someday the trials will end, but my faith in Jesus Christ will never be over. It will deepen and grow until the day I step into eternity and see His face.