I beseech you . . .

In his commentary on 1st Peter, Alexander Maclaren writes:

"And so, I beseech you, open your eyes to the meaning of life, and do not suppose that you have found the last word to say about it when you say, 'I am afflicted,' or 'I am at ease.'  The afflictions and the ease, like two great wheels in some great machine working in opposite directions, fit with their cogs into one another and move to something beyond them in one uniform direction."

The must be purpose behind all of God's providence be if afflicting or easing, confounding or comforting.  If there is no purpose then we are great fools to believe in Him and to seek to serve Him.  Both affliction and ease carry their own dangers and their own promise.  The danger of sin and the promise of being conformed to the likeness of Christ.  And which dear friend would you have?

We were promised tribulation in this worlds.  We are told over and over that we will face trials.  but we are assured over and over that there is a point a purpose.  We may complain about them to God but we must never complain of God about them.  They are, for all their bite and sting, for our good and His glory.

There is not much that should be needed to be said about trials and ease for you dear reader, if you have been attentive to your Bible will know this at least intellectually.  but God would have you know it experimentally - to know it deeply and to trust His working in your lives for your good and His glory.

We are, as Peter says, living stones.  As stones that are intended to be fitted together with others that build the temple we muse be hewn, sized and polished.  This demands a hammer and chisel.  We must trust that He is forming us to take our place in His temple, to be "fitted" for our purpose and place.

Indeed affliction and ease serve a purpose far beyond the experience.  Will we accept that and rejoice in His care regardless of it's pleasantness of unpleasantness?  

There in ends the lesson.