Are You Willing? 4

1 Peter 4:12-13

I recall a teen-age girl at our previous church who had a pretty good life. She and her family had a nice house, drove nice cars, and she was popular in school. Then one day her father became ill and she was absolutely devastated. How could God be so cruel? Why was life suddenly so hard?

And I wondered at her lack of faith. I wondered why she was so surprised when something bad had happened.

It isn’t that we should never hope for good in our life. It isn’t that we shouldn’t desire a comfortable life. But neither should we be surprised when bad things come along now and then. In Matthew 5:46 Jesus tells us, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Things happen in life. Some are good and some are bad. But we who believe in God and try to follow the teachings of Jesus, we who try to live a righteous and holy life will indeed encounter opposition. Those who do not have our faith may be confused by our beliefs and may be against what Jesus teaches. The evil that exists in the world will always work against those who try to do good.

So, Peter has a comment on our attitudes. What does he say about suffering? How should we react?

This is not to say that we should delight in troubles. Rather, we should not be surprised when bad things come along. And we should expect that our attempts at living as Jesus taught is going to bring some challenges.

We shouldn’t rejoice in every problem that we encounter, but we should rejoice when we encounter trials as we live out a holy life. It shows us that we are in fact doing good or the evil that exists wouldn’t be working so hard to stop it.

If we experience hardships because of our faith it can be an indicator that we are indeed on the right path. We should rejoice, not in our troubles, but in the knowledge that we are doing what is right.

DAILY CHALLENGE: How can you rejoice in the trials that come from living out your faith?