Eternal Perspective

1 Peter 1:6-7
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.

I just love it when God follows-up on a lesson just learned, don’t you? Recently, I had a nervous breakdown (OK, so I’m exaggerating a bit, but I was on the verge!), only to turn around right into feeling God’s great love and compassion. He knew and understood at that moment what I needed most - just the reminder of the simple truth of His great love. When I sat down for my quiet-time the next morning, He took me one step further, and revealed to me much of the reason He allows difficult times in our lives - our faith.

I love in verse 7 when He tells us our faith is of greater value than even gold. Gold seems to be the universal symbol of affluence and wealth - if we have gold, we have everything, right? Wrong. Faith is of greater importance to God, and so it should be with us. After-all, gold will perish, but our faith will last forever. I am constantly asking God to strengthen my faith, to help me walk more confident in it. Then, when He sends a trial or test that will help me do just that, I cower and whimper, asking Him to take it all away - I have nights where I feel my life must be at its end (and then I call it a nervous breakdown).

I know it is so difficult to keep an eternal mind-set. This world around us is so temporal, very much into the here and now, very much into the external. Somehow, though, we must continue to see this life as God sees it - a mere stepping stone into the next, richer, eternal life. God is simply building us up that we would then glorify God in what we do. Our finances will fluctuate - money will come and it will go - yes, God has set out pretty clear standards regarding how we are to treat it, but it is not eternal. It is simply a tool. We will have times when things in our lives are going well, and everything seems to be falling into place with our family, our ministry, and everything else we put our hands to. Then, there will be times when we wonder why we bother with our families, ministry, or anything else. It feels as though God is completely against us, and nothing we do will ever succeed. Somehow, through it all, we must look to God to give us His perspective. We must allow Him to remind us that this chapter may be bad - we may not understand it, or like it, or agree with it - but when the last chapter is written, and we can look back over the whole story, we will see how it all worked together moving us ever closer to the happy ending we can all rest-assured is in store for us.

So, we have a choice - will we allow God to temper us, test us, and strengthen our faith? Will we trust that this chapter will take us to the next chapter, until finally the story is complete and bound in heaven’s radiant light? Our faith is of utmost importance to God - let’s let Him build it up, and use it for His great glory and delight!