Saturday Devotions: Persevering Faith

1 Peter 1:6-7 reads, 

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.

These verses reminded me today of the need to persevere in trials.  Many of us know this, though, but fewer of us keep our eyes on the goal, or the end, of this perseverance: the greater glory of Jesus Christ.  This, and not an abstract character-building, is what we seek.  When you and I rejoice in the midst of a miscarriage, or the loss of a job, or a needed conflict with a child or friend, we give God great glory, and we honor the Savior who went through awful suffering to save us.

All Christians can and should live in this way.  As a husband and father, I am reminded that I have a special duty to set an example for my family when faced with trial.  I am called to lead them in acting in faith in the midst of trial.  If my program falls apart, my dissertation fails, or my job ends, I am called to rejoice in order that my “tested” faith might glorify Jesus Christ.

I am quite aware of how I personally fall short in this area.  But I am reminded by the apostle Peter to forge ahead and to seek fresh opportunities to give God glory in the midst of the fire that finds it way to all of us by the will of the Father.  Trials are not accidents but opportunities, Peter says, and so should we handle them.