By David ReayTuesday 28 Jul 2020LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (NLT)
Many of us would like two things to happen in our Christian lives. One is to hope and pray our faith would grow stronger and our attachment to Jesus would deepen. The other is to hope and pray we avoid as much trouble as possible in our journey through life.
It seems we can’t have both. Jesus promised his followers much joy and much trouble. And texts like this remind us that faith is strengthened through trials and testing. I can become stronger in faith or just coast along in life. I can’t do both.
This is so because we tend to rely on lots of things and people apart from trusting in Jesus. Our preoccupations are such that Jesus is somehow at the margins of our lives and we may tend to merely dabble in discipleship.
But when our other sources of security are taken away, when things get beyond our control, when our resources are stretched to breaking point, we are driven to cling to God alone. He is all we have. When the sun is shining and all is well, we can tend to forget him. When clouds gather and we are in danger, we recognise more clearly our need of him.
God may remove some things from us not to create utter emptiness, but rather to fill us with what those other things cannot ultimately provide.
Blessings
David