January 25, 2014

From Jim McGuiggan... Waiting, Smiling People


Waiting, Smiling People

Peter Ackroyd said the thirteen year-old Charles Dickens was stronger than his companions when he had survived his fears and come through his bitter childhood experience of the darker side of London life. Having come through it, “actually lent to him a certain sense of power and of authority. He knew more than his companions, and this sense of having had a larger and deeper experience may well have spurred him forward.”
Yes, but what exactly is it that made Dickens stronger and spurred him on? It wasn’t just the experience of life in a blacking factory, cut off from his family—it was the fact that he had survived it intact! He now knew things about himself that he could not have known had he not gone through this time of trial. Others had sunk without trace in such circumstances; their fears had proved to be correct. The fears had said, “You’ll collapse, you won’t be able to take the pressure!” They did, and they couldn’t. But not young Charles Dickens! Whatever his fears had whispered to him in his lonely attic at night or during the long humiliating days at the factory—they were wrong! He now knew it! He knew it in the only way you can know such things—he’d come through it triumphant and that knowledge by experience was strength and it made him believe that whatever was ahead he could handle it!
I suppose that for most of us there were times when we feared we’d not make it, that the pressure was too great or the loneliness was too long or the hurt too intense. Some of us came out the other side and not only did we feel the ecstasy of relief there was the added awareness of an inner strength. “I’m still on my feet! Fancy that!”
When we came out of the blacking factory into the light and looked around there were waiting people, smiling at the sight of us, their eyes shining with admiration; not only glad for us but proud of us and giving God praise for doing such a wonderful thing in and with us.
There’s something of that in 1 Peter 1:7. The text is not just as straightforward as the major versions make it appear. The text says they were going through trial so that “the testing” of their faith might result in praise and glory and honour all round. Precisely the same phrase is found in James 1:3 where the testing process is in view. In James it isn’t their faith that works patience; it’s the trying of their faith that works patience and this might be Peter’s point—the testing experience will finally result in praise and honour. Faith is the “material” being tested but it might be the testing process that he has in mind.
How many metal-workers must have smiled when they subjected this substance to the fire and grinned all over at the proof that what they tested was truly gold. Gold is subjected to testing and the result is the proof of its preciousness. Christian faith is subjected to testing and is proved genuine and God and right thinking people recognize that faith is much more precious than gold.
Maybe, in the end, we’re not to separate the testing from the faith and that Peter is talking about “a proved-genuine” faith; not an untried faith but a faith that has come out the other side of the furnace. To know that you have a faith that can survive the fire is not just another piece of information—it is a kind of knowing, a kind of knowledge that becomes part of who you are. Some information you can live well without and some enables you to be and live profoundly better.
To know that God has protected you by faith (1:5) gives you a fine sense of present strength and courage for the future for while you recognize that God has been there, always been there, keeping you and guarding you, he didn’t do it by magic. He didn’t do it without you; he did it with you and in you and through you. It was always him but it was never him without you! You were no puppet! If anyone asks you how you made it through you’d remind them without any hesitation or reservation that it was all God’s doing. But you’d rejoice within knowing he chose not to do it without you!
God bless and keep you who are going through the fire.

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