THE FURNACE...

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
-- 1 Peter 4:12

TV preachers who talk of happiness and abundance as the true results of faith, tell only part of the story. We cannot appreciate abundance without knowing lack. We cannot be happy unless we've known joy in the midst of pain.

Through $30,000 smiles and caked makeup, they tell a half-true story. But where there is half-truth, there is falsehood.

I've always wondered how their message would sit with the Apostle Paul. "Paul," they might say, "if you truly have faith, you should be on a yacht and not in a dungeon. God wants you to be rich and happy." Paul might smile to himself - or cry - and continue writing the words:

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. 

In any and every circumstance, I learned the secret 

of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 

I CAN DO ALL THINGS 

THROUGH HIM WHO STRENGTHENS ME.  

-- Philippians 4:11-13

Yes, God does want us to know joy. Jesus is the embodiment of joy. His presence is the fullness of joy. As one (non-makeuped) preacher put it... KNOW JESUS, KNOW JOY. NO JESUS. NO JOY. 

Yes, God does want us to experience abundance. And sometimes with that abundance comes wealth. But wealth measured in only stuff and money is not true wealth. 

When we buy what the half-truth-tellers sell, we pay the consequences. We are surprised by trial. Worse, we feel deceived or defeated by trial's mere presence.

If you will allow an old preacher to preach for a moment (through morning-coffee teeth and with a new blemish on my cheek (who gets those at my age anyway?) - in other words, no $30K smile or makeup)... 

The fire of trial will not defeat you. It may burn away some things that, though painful, ultimately hold you back. But it will not consume you. The fire of trial will REFINE you. It will FORGE your character. It will make you who can be. And in the midst of the heat, you will find the presence of JOY. 

I can't say that I have learned to look forward to trials. I don't necessarily embrace them (before or during). But I am better for the pain. And I bear the scars with an odd joy (and almost pride). I don't look forward to my next fiery trial. But I fear it less. Because within every furnace I've walked, there has been one who walks with me.

God, you have always been with me through the fire of trial, refine me. Forge me...

For now...

D