Refining Reorientation (I do love alliteration!)

I had the privilege of revisiting my old friend 1 Peter last week...it was such a refreshing time! (What a blessing it is to be in a class which focuses on the New Testament...those two hour-and-a- half periods are some of the best hours of my week!) One of the main points of 1 Peter is what the Christian perspective on suffering should be, and how trials prove the genuineness of our faith. Peter compares trials in our lives to the refining of metals...and here's where I had an Ah HA! moment. My professor talked about how in the refining process the bad is separated from the good, and the invaluable is removed. Trials strip away the things that are faulty, unhealthy, worthless and unimportant and they reorient our lives to what really matters. I know that this semester has been good even though it has been extremely hard because I can see how my wrong thinking and faulty beliefs are being stripped away. I have been forced to re-evaluate; I have had to prioritize. I am learning what is better; I am learning what is true.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 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. --1 Peter 1:3-9