Broken Heart on Hold by Linda Rooks

Author:Linda Rooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: divorce, separation, loneliness, devotional, encouragement
ISBN: 9780781406062
Publisher: David C Cook

SILVER AND GOLD

These [trials] have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

—1 PETER 1:7

God loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to leave us there. He longs to draw out the beauty he sees within, but that beauty is frequently dimmed by the tarnish gathering on the surface of the soul. Impurities—from the world’s influence and dross collected from childhood—settle among the rich nuggets of gold and silver within us that intermittently shine forth in precious moments of illumination. But their radiance is too quickly gobbled up in the shadows and futility of our own stubbornness and short-sightedness.

Although it is painful to suffer, God can use heartache—if we let him—to bring out the priceless treasure within us. These trials have come, says Peter, so that our “faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7).

God wasn’t surprised when this crisis occurred. He saw it coming, but for some reason he did not stop it, perhaps because he saw it as an opportunity to do greater things. First, he sees such things as an opportunity to draw us closer to him. We think God just wants us to be good and do things for him. But God’s primary desire is for us to be in relationship with him. He longs for us to come and sit in his lap, talk to him, and read the Book he has given us. He is our Father. And he wants us to depend on him.

Secondly, he sees that a greater good than our own comfort can come out of our trials. He knows that if we learn to depend on him as a result of heartache and begin looking to him for direction, he can use these circumstances not only to bless us, but also to bless others. He has a plan, and it is a good plan. But we have to depend on him if we want to discover it.

James tells us to “consider it pure joy” whenever we face trials, because the testing of faith “develops perseverance,” and “perseverance must finish its work so that [we] may be mature and complete” (1:2–3). At the beginning of the agonizing time of marital crisis, the suffering is too intense. The best we can do is just hang on to the hem of Jesus’ garment and keep from being washed down a drainpipe in the middle of the flood of confusion and turmoil. But as this time of trial continues, and if our spiritual muscles become strong enough to keep us focused on God, he will begin to take us beyond the suffering into a new place. There he will develop our awareness of dark spots in our lives he wants to refine.

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