Like Gold
1 Peter 1:6-9 “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. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
This has been one of those weeks for our family. Our youngest, Caroline, had a strange stomach bug. Every once in a while she would puke (like 24+ hours between episodes) and then would seem somewhat normal in between, doing normal kid things. I woke up one morning with some serious pink eye in one eye only for it to spread and become much worse the next day. I had my eyes crusted shut multiple mornings. And my wife has been dealing with on and off nausea for multiple years. She has seen various specialists, naturopath doctors, different medications, cleanse regimens, even had her gall bladder removed just over a year ago, but we have had no relief and no answers. All the while our oldest, Wesley just went through the week like a trooper, very little complaining despite everyone else being down for the count.
Normally my response to a week like this is to complain to God about it, get super down and sometimes depressed. But when we were able to get together very limitedly as a family the past week I tried to pull us into looking toward what we can’t see (in the unseen realm) over what we are experiencing in the seen realm. That’s somewhat fitting considering my eyes were crusted shut multiple mornings and had to ask Katy to guide me to the bathroom to get a warm compress on them just to open them. This is how we need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. To close our eyes to what we see around us in this world so He can open them to the reality of His world, what He really wants us to see.
Peter speaks of this, how God puts such an incredible heavy value on our Faith. He considers genuine faith more precious than gold, which even perishes by fire. This genuine faith is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit in you and me. He asks us to deny what our flesh is dealing with and desiring to completely be surrendered to Him. He makes this possible, I cannot do this as I will make a mess of it. The only thing He asks is that we lean on the Spirit and not our own ways.
There were so many times this week where I wanted to lean on my own ways and sometimes I did. But I believe we have had a very small shift as a family in our attitude towards our circumstances as I attempted to lead (probably not well I’ll admit) our family to look to things that we don’t see in order to obtain the outcome of our faith.
In Hebrews class we are learning about how this connection of our faith walk (not just a simple faith in the cross, but a faith that grows into looking to a reward that is eternal) is highly connected to how God deals with us as sons as heirs. He disciplines those that He loves our good so we may share in His holiness (Heb 12:10). Wait, what?!? The discipline He has for us is to share in His holiness! How can someone share in His perfection? That absolutely baffles me that He so wants us to move from living so much in the circumstances of now to the circumstances of the eternal (discipline) in order to share in His holiness. That is incredible! Without a faith that is directed by Him and is led by His Spirit each day, each moment, we will desire an out when we are in circumstacnes our flesh really hates. With a faith that He leads us into, having eyes to see the unseen and the eternal, He shifts our attitudes of getting out of our circumstances to a place where we can ask what is this teaching me for His eternal kingdom?
I believe that the most precious faith and most difficult faith we can have and experience is connected to when God says, “No” or “Not yet.” It is so extremely difficult when we know that He is a God that can heal and wants to heal but in the moment He says “No” or “Not yet.” Believing what He speaks over us in these moments and believing Him and His word over His character and capacity of His power we know He has; that is true faith.
That’s why we can rejoice when circumstances aren’t “fun” because He is growing a faith in us that is genuine and more precious than gold in order to bring us to a place where we can share in His holiness. God wants to lead us into a place where we can experience that peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb 12:11).
Is there something that keeps coming up, a situation or circumstance that you just don’t want to deal with anymore? Maybe this is something that God keeps highlighting because He wants to use it to push us from looking to and experiencing the seen realm, the here and now, to something greater that we can’t see. This has eternal consequences. And I pray we start experiencing this shift more and more.