(Just a reminder if you aren’t receiving my posts by email: you can make sure you don’t miss a single one by putting in your email address below “Subscribe via email” on the left side of my blog. And be sure to confirm your desire when you receive the email asking you to do that.)
Yesterday when I talked with my daughter about Raffi’s “normal” MRI results (see yesterday’s blog for information), she talked about how waiting for the MRI to occur was a time of testing of her faith in the Lord. She passed the “test” and kept strong in trusting God to do the good thing for Raffi and their family. Then she said something so powerful, “I felt like it was a kind of fire drill.”
Now I don’t think she meant that she expects something bad to happen immediately, but like fire drills prepare us for a fire, this experience prepared her to trust God for anything that might happen. Her faith was strengthened. She believes even more deeply that He is a good God regardless of the twists and turns that life brings. Such is the purpose of challenges whether or not what we fear happens.
Maybe you’re in a season of testing that will turn out to be a spiritual fire drill or the actual fire. Either way God is the same good God. And you can trust Him. The spiritual fire drill will strengthen you to do that.
God wants to help you. (Now I’ll confess that that sentence is a shameless bridge to telling a Raffi story). I was skyping with 4 1/2 year old Raffi and he wanted me to make some funny designs of my face like his grandpa can do with a particular software. At first I couldn’t find out how to do it so Raffi said, “Just call the Help people.” Wow! He already knows that someone is available to help you with the computer. Then he said, “Just go to Menu.” Wow! Just go to the source to get some direction.
Now here’s the shameless application. God is the ultimate “Help Person.” He’s the one who wants to help you as you go through any spiritual fire drill. He is there for you. He loves you.
And the “menu”? That’s His Word. The Bible is where you’ll find the directions you need for everything. Read I Peter 1:6-9:
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (NIV).
Your spiritual fire drills and the actual fires are proving your faith which brings results. You may not clearly see Jesus or even know exactly or perfectly how to respond, but the end result is knowing Him better. You’ll call on Him, the “Helper,” more faithfully. And you’ll go to the Ultimate Menu, the Bible, more readily.
And your faith will be revealed when Jesus Christ is revealed. I could stand up and say “Praise the Lord!” How about you?