"And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you." (1 Peter 5:10)
Yesterday, we went through the first part of 1 Peter 5:10, and noted three things that give us hope to sustain us in trials: the brevity of our suffering, the fact that God is gracious, and the fact that we are called by God to His eternal glory in Christ.
But as if all that weren't enough, Peter also offers us the hope that to some measure now, and for certain on that day when our earthly suffering comes to an end, God Himself will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us. Now to get a little technical for a minute, the verb "confirm" in the Greek is somewhere in between "strengthen" and "establish" in a nuanced way that I don't understand (and commentators weren't much help there either). So I'm going to separate those 4 verbs into 3 categories and briefly meditate on how each one gives us hope for the longings that rise out of our earthly trials.
1) He will RESTORE you. When we suffer, we long to be made whole, to be made fully and finally free from all temptations to sin, and fully able to love and worship God as we ought. That is what we were made for. But our experience on this earth is often one of not doing what we want to do, of falling short, of being torn down, of dying. We live in a broken world and we are broken people. And mothering frequently exposes our brokenness and sin. We get anxious, we are proud, we get annoyed over little requests of our time, we don't love our children and husbands as we want to.
We need to cling to the hope that when Christ became a curse for us on the cross, he redeemed us from the curse of brokenness and death that was proclaimed over man after his fall in the Garden. And the day is coming when God Himself will fully restore us to the position of Adam and Eve in the Garden before they fell in sin. Sin and sorrow will be no more; our bodies will be made whole, no longer given to pain and aging and death; fatigue will be replaced by boundless energy; boredom will be replaced by enthusiastic worship; time will no longer tick away; refreshment and joy will be our continual experience.
What is more, that restoration process has already begun. If you are in Christ, sin no longer has power over you. If you are in Christ, your inner self is being renewed day by day. In fact, the very trials that make you long for restoration are being used to make you more like Christ, as you were intended to be, if you will only hold steadfast and hope in the God who has full restoration in store for you.
2) He will STRENGTHEN you. We long for strength for each day - for physical energy to tackle our tasks, for emotional strength to face the day's turmoil, for mental strength to answer a million "whys", for spiritual strength to cling to our Saviour and keep away from sin. And yet we are so weak, so easily laid low by illness or lack of sleep. Our emotions turn on a dime and we cry or get angry for reasons we don't understand. Our kids ask questions we cannot even remotely begin to answer, or we can't remember our own phone number, or why we went upstairs in the first place. And we forget God, we give in to temptation, we stumble in sin again.
The fall stole our strength, but we endure the trials of weakness with the hope that part of our future restoration will involve the redemption of our physical bodies. God Himself will give us strength beyond what we've known on our healthiest days. Our minds will be clear and focused, and we'll worship God with our whole heart and soul, without any wavering.
We receive this strength in part now as God sustains us, gives us hope and the power to endure joyfully as we go through the trials of this life. In this life, God's strengthening manifests itself most clearly in our hours of weakness. But we can go through those hours with the sure hope that the God who called us WILL sustain us by His perfect strength until the day that He grants us perfect strength.
3) He will ESTABLISH you. Life is ever-changing. We never know what the next moment will bring. Our emotions are constantly fluctuating, and the smallest of trials can seem to derail our morning. Our children go from dancing around the room happily to wailing uncontrollably in a matter of minutes. Our finances fall apart. We have to move to a new house and set up shop again. People we lean on for help and encouragement move away or die. We long for stability and security.
1 Peter 5:10 assures us of the hope that God will establish us. The God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, in Whom there is no shadow of turning--this God will set us in a firm place, a place where nothing ever changes for the worse, a place where moth and rust do not destroy, a place where the work we do will last forever and ever as a testament to His glory and grace, a place where we cannot be moved and where there will never be need to flee, a place where we will have an eternal home.
Even now, in this world so full of fluctuation and instability, we have the very present hope of a solid rock on which to stand. Psalm 121 tells us that those who look to the Lord for help will not be moved. Psalm 46 tells us that in the midst of the turmoil and upheaval of this world, God is our refuge and fortress who keeps us stable. Psalm 18 tells us that God is our rock and stronghold in distress. And I have always loved the imagery of Psalm 63:8, where it describes our soul clinging to God (I have a picture in my head of hanging over a cliff, holding on for dear life), and yet all the while God's hand is underneath, holding us up.
Note also that Peter doesn't say God is going to send an angel or someone else to do all these things. He is going to do it HIMSELF. He himself will personally wipe every tear from your eyes, and will personally restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you. He himself is currently holding you up, sustaining you through long days and long nights until that great Day when "long" will be fully replaced by "eternal", and hope will finally be sight.
So when you're having one of those days that seems like it will never end - even if it's the kind where your husband calls and says he's going to be home late - be faithful to your responsibilities with the strength God provides for you, in the joy that you are no longer a slave to anger and discontentment if you are in Christ, resting firmly on the rock that is Christ, clinging to the hope of 1 Peter 5:10.
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