WHEN THE HEAT IS ON

In my previous blog, I addressed the issue of trouble: “YOU CAN’T STOP TROUBLE.” (March 3) In John 16:33 Jesus said, (God’s Word Translation) “I've told you this so that my peace will be with you. In the world you'll have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world." 

If we really can’t stop trouble, then the real issue is how we deal with trouble and what we do in response to its ominous presence in our lives. Trouble, more than any other factor, forces us to a place where we search our hearts and seriously seek God. In today’s blog I want to continue to focus on the type of trouble which comes to us, not as a consequence of our sin or a decision we’ve made, it comes because we’ve become a target, either of God’s refining purposes or the devil’s evil schemes. 

In today’s blog I want us to look at God’s refining purposes. In Mark 9:49 (The Message) it says, “Everyone’s going through a refining fire sooner or later…” When the heat is on (to use a familiar slang):

• We’re compelled to consider the condition of our spiritual heart.—Charles Spurgeon said: “Trials often discover sins—sins we should have never found out if it had not been for (the trials).”
• We’re confronted with our personal and profound weakness.—In the introduction of J.I. Packer’s classic book, Knowing God, he describes the modern man (and I am paraphrasing) who “thinks great thoughts of man and small thoughts of God.” Trouble has a way of humbling us, like nothing else.
•  We’re convinced of our desperate dependence upon God.—When you can’t stop trouble no matter what you do (how hard you pray, regardless of your faith and faithfulness) there’s no other choice but to trust God. And then trust Him some more!

 When you find yourself going through “a refining fire,” and you will “sooner or later,” look at what Peter writes we are to do: 1 Peter 1:6-7 TNIV “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (Note: This is the same Peter who Satan demanded permission from Jesus to “sift…like wheat”, Luke 22:31, so he understood trouble more than most!)

In Job’s case, the refining process was more important than God breaking his extended silence, even though Job had many questions and was in a place of deep despair and confusion. The process was more important than God intervening and shutting up Job’s friends. (Duct tape had not yet been invented but it could have been put to good use.) God’s refining process was more important than prematurely rescuing Job from trouble. 

Just so I am not misunderstood, I am not suggesting that Job’s trouble was primarily for the purpose of refining his faith. Though Job’s statement in 42:5 (NIV) demonstrates his faith in the Father was dramatically impacted on the other side of his trouble: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

When we go through trouble, we learn things about ourselves. On the other hand, when we go through trouble, we learn things about God which can be discovered no other way.

TO BE CONTINUED