Tried With "Fire"

Written Aug. 1999

Tried With "Fire"

I Peter 1:6-7

6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye
are in heaviness through manifold temptations:

7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:


Lord, when I read "now for a season", I think of Dr. Piper's words
that "for a christian, suffering only lasts for a brief moment-just a
brief lifetime." My suffering seems to drag on and on and on! But
in light of eternity, someday I will look back and know that it was
just one brief moment. Hallelujah!

I also notice the words "greatly REJOICE" and "HEAVINESS" in this
verse. It's amazing how these two things can go so well together
whenever a Christian's faith is being tested. And my faith is
PRECIOUS, You say here! Yes, it is the most valuable thing in all
the world, much more valuable than gold. It is Your gift to me, and
I thank-You, Lord! And now it is being tried with FIRE! Thank-You
for Your promise from Is. 43:2:

"…when thou walkest throught the fire, thou shalt not be burned;
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."

The fire will cleanse, but it will not burn me to ashes.

I think of Job who was a righteous man, yet his afflictions made him
sensitive to his remaining sinfulness and pride in his heart-the sin
that he didn't realize he had until the "fire" came. Dr. John
Piper's words from a sermon on Job expresses Job's thoughts in Job
36:15-

"He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and OPENETH THEIR EARS in
oppression."

Piper says,-

"SUFFERING OPENS THE EAR!
'I got an EAR when I got sick,'(Job was saying.)

The pedagogy of God is PAIN. There are dimensions of righteousness
and holiness and godlineses that only the suffering can attain
because He gives them an EAR…

The suffering of the righteous is not the fire of destruction, but
the fire that refines the gold of their goodness-because it's not
punitive, but curative-rehabilitative.

Suffering is not dispersed "willy-nilly" among the people of God. It
is apportioned to us as individually designed expert therapy by the
loving hand of our Great Physician. And its aim is that our faith
might be refined, our holiness might be enlarged, our soul might be
saved, and our God might be glorified!"

Lord, I like this poem:


When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man and skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part,
When He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man
That all the world should be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways:
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him into shapes and forms of clay
Which only God can understand.
While man's tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands;
Yet God bends but never breaks when man's good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And with mighty power infuses him,
With every act induces him to try His splendor out,
God knows what He's about.

-Author unknown