Your Transient Trial

1 Peter 5:10 says this, “In His kindness, God called you to share in His eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus.  So after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation.”  (NLT)

The King James Version says it like this, “… after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”

Ahh.. the result of suffering in the Christ follower is to establish “stablish” us, strengthen us, and settle us.  Charles Spurgeon uses the words to be, “established, settled, and abiding.”  And notice these all come “after we have suffered a while."  The NASB says, “a LITTLE while”, which can be translated to mean, “puny or small.”

The Passion Translation calls it “brief suffering”, while the Aramaic calls is, “slight suffering”, which means something that is “temporary.”

Peter uses this at the beginning of the epistle that bears his name in chapter 1, verse 6.  The KJV describes those to whom the apostle is addressing here as those in a “season of heaviness.”

And maybe you find yourself there too.  In a season of heaviness?

There’s good news!

Not only are those who know Jesus as their personal Savior, “called unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus”, we have the promise that, “after we have suffered a ‘little’ while, He will make us perfect” and will, “stablish, strengthen, and settle” us.

After these puny setbacks… these small difficulties… God, who is filled with all grace, will establish us, settle us, and strengthen us so we can abide with Him.

The word establish means a foundation laid well.
The word settled means to fix, set, and to stabilize.
The word abiding means to continue without change, to endure, and steadfastly remain.

God is in the business of taking that which seems broken and bringing it back to full and complete usefulness.  He delights in invigorating that which is lifeless.

He will take our present suffering and use it to build something solid and secure.  He will seize the broken fragments of our current condition to create a well-laid foundation that is fixed and steady and secure, and eventually develop us to be so strengthened that we abide with great confidence and withstand faithfully to the end.  Oh that we might be able to say we, “ran our race with endurance the race that lied before us.”  (Heb 12:1)

He is a good good Father who is making all things new.  Yes even your present suffering!  Great hardship for Him is never in vain.

God is transforming your transient trial.