Baby is starting to fuss so I don't know how much time I'll have. I often feel as if I'm playing "Concentration" and my time is nearly up.
In my last blog I wrote, "I like to believe that I'm beyond all of this preformance driven pointlessness. These fires have proved that it is not so." Then in my reading I came across this:
I Peter 1:6-7
I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffereing comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
After I read that I realized that I think that my heart is bad. I look at trials as hard times that will reveal my rotten heart. Underneath my surface mask lies immaturity, sin, meanness, faithlessness, anger. Aggravations expose me as a fake, a sinner. They expose my immaturity. At least, that's the belief I've been operating under. No wonder I resist challenges.
But this verse seems to imply something far different. What goes into the fire doesn't come out stinking. It comes out clean, and pure, and refined. Something good is exposed. Now what if I believed that. What if I went into trials, went through trials, looking for the good to be exposed, certain I would find it.
And yet trials do expose my sin and need of Christ. But not only my lack, and perhaps not primarily my lack.
This all reminds me of reading John Eldridge a few years back. He claims that our hearts are good. One Sunday, in my position as usher, I was welcoming those entering the sanctuary. As I looked into those faces my own heart was nearly exploding with joy, "My heart is GOOD! My heart is GOOD!"
Yes, indeed, a heart of pure gold.
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4 comments:
Your heart is GOOD!! THAT is the deepest, made in the image of God part of you!
There is a great song by Andrew Peterson, "Pillar of Fire", that reminds me of your blog entry. Zip me an email if you want to hear it!
. . . looking for the good . . . to be exposed . . . ahhh the eyes of your heart . . . are good . . . you are beautiful Gloria!
"Aggravations expose me as a fake, a sinner...that's the belief I've been operating under. No wonder I resist challenges."
I appreciate your honesty with this. "I resist challenges" REALLY rings true of me.
i KNOW your heart is good. it's so obvious.
i read this same passage on sunday towards the end of my journey home from louisiana. what is so interesting to me is that what i pulled from it, what i read, was different. but that also, what you found there, resides a bit in me as well. i love that.
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