Faith Refined Through the Trials

     Last week when I started this blog I had made a goal to myself to post weekly.  Last week I also felt God just put something on my heart to share and my plan for this blog is to always share what God has put on my heart.  After posting Friday night, the next morning we were eating breakfast and I asked my husband "what if God doesn't put anything on my heart this week to share this week?"  He sort of smirked at me and responded, "oh you of little faith."  Well there it was. Faith... or the lack thereof... that's what God has been putting on my heart.  For a couple of months now actually, my very tiny faith has been something that keeps coming up.  I knew right when he made that comment that faith was what my topic should be but I kept stressing over coming up with another topic and hoping God would put something else on my heart.

     Last week I had a verse stuck in my head all week and ended up reading that passage and writing on it.  This week I had a word stuck in my head and last night I decided I would write about that word; refine.  I've been praying God would use the trials during this Coronavirus situation to refine our hearts.  I started studying scriptures on this topic and found a passage that I just kept coming back to. This morning while taking a closer look at that passage I realized it wasn't just about refining our hearts in general.  It was about God refining our faith through the trials.  So here it is. My blog on faith.

1 Peter 1:3-9

3 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, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,5 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. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 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. 8 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, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

     These past couple of months faith has seemed to be a theme that keeps coming up and I have been praying that God would strengthen my faith.  I often think of the man in Mark 9:24 that tells Jesus "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief."  Looking at this passage in 1 Peter it seems that sometimes God uses trials to prove and refine our faith.  There is no doubt we all have our fair share of trials right now.  This current coronavirus situation is bringing trials for many of us.
     I think personally one of the hardest things for me right now is just not knowing what the future holds.  I am such a planner and I want to have control of everything.  I have financial plans, work plans, I have a baby coming in July and suddenly everything is completely unknown and it makes me extremely uncomfortable.  I think it is due time I "let go and let God."  I need to allow God to use this time to refine my faith in him.  I need to give him control in my life because he is the only one that knows what tomorrow holds and he already has a plan and is in control of this whole situation.  I encourage you to join me during this time of uncertainty to daily turn to God and allow him to refine our hearts by turning from fear to faith and meanwhile, lets rejoice amidst this trial because this faith is rooted in a living hope that we have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.