Protected and Purified

Please note, time references in this post are not necessarily in “real time.”

Today in my time in God’s Word, I was searching for hope. This migraine episode seems to have been dragging on forever and to not be getting any better, and I was becoming discouraged. It’s easy for me to slip into a pattern of thinking—now especially since I have no job still and still struggle to stay on my feet for a whole day—that I’m useless. I feel like I’m just waiting around for the stroke that will most likely someday take my life (my HM and family history both put me at a high risk of stroke). I feel like I have no purpose. I just take up space and food and money, and I have become a burden to my parents. I’m thirty years old, for crying out loud! I should have something I’m working toward, a goal, a passion—not sitting around doing nothing other than read and crochet because that’s about all I can do right now.

I went to the right place in my time with God. I began studying 1 Peter. Peter wrote this epistle to Christians who were in exile, who were suffering. The first thing he reminded them of was what I needed to be reminded of myself. I have been chosen by God and I am being sanctified by the Holy Spirit for a purpose: to obey Christ and thereby bring praise and glory and honor to Him. As I read verses three through five, I was reminded of three things. (1) When I was saved, I was given a life of hope because of Jesus’ resurrection. (2) I was also given an inheritance that will not end or be taken away or be made imperfect in any way. (3) I am being guarded by God’s power because of my faith in Him so that I may reveal His glory and triumph over sin and spend eternity with Him. My eternal destiny is being protected by the Creator of the universe because I chose to place my faith in Him. What an incredible thought!

After he reminded the exiled Christians of this truth, Peter then says, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through [many trials].” It doesn’t matter that my life may be hard here on this earth; I am still being guarded by God. I should rejoice in that. God still values my soul so much, He protects it Himself, even through the worst possible suffering we can imagine here on earth.

And I know it sounds trite and cliché, but this suffering serves its own purpose. It is proving how real my faith is. Do I really trust God to protect my soul, or do I not? Do I genuinely believe that I have been given a life of hope and an inheritance? Trials refine our faith, purging it of the impurity of unbelief just as gold is refined—or purged of impurities—by fire. The fewer impurities in the gold, the more genuine the gold. The less unbelief in the believer, the more genuine his or her faith. So the question I was left with after my studying today was this: How genuine is my faith? Each trial is a chance to grow and purify my faith. Am I taking advantage of that?

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