More Precious than Gold

I Peter 1:7 - 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:


I don't like trials, I don't like rough times, I like things to go like floating down the river, slow and easy.  But while you may have fun floating down the river you don't grow, you don't sow seeds, you don't bear fruit.  You are just a floater.  God never called us to be floaters, He called us to be workers.


I admire folks that like to garden, they get to see the results of their work in veggies or flowers.  I don't like to garden, but I know some things about it.  To garden you must first till the soil.  If you don't break up the soil, the seeds planted will not take root.  Sometimes the ground is hard and it takes some perseverance to get the soil soft.  That is the way our hearts can be at times.  It takes the hard things to get our hearts ready for what God has for us.  It may take trails to reach us and make pliable, soft and usable.  But those trials are to bring honor and glory.  They are not to defeat us, they are not to discourage us, they are to make us pure.


Sometimes God has a job for us to do that we just don't feel ready for or capable of doing.  We may rebel if that is the case.  God has to use the trials and testing to get us ready to do His will.  While we are discomforted by those times, God says that those trials show our faith to be more precious that gold. 


So today if you are being tested, if you feel like giving up, if you feel there is no reason to go on, mediate on this verse.  You may be in the fire, you may feel you will never get out but God says that very fire is showing your faith to be more precious than gold and for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ.  When we think of what He has done for us, our present sufferings pale in comparison.  He suffered agony, He carried our cross.  Can we be tried for His glory?