"The Purpose of these troubles is to test your faith as fire tests how genuine gold is. Your faith is more precious than gold, and by passing the test, it gives praise, glory, and honor to God. This will happen when Jesus Christ appears again."
1 Peter 1:7
I heard this passage in church yesterday and it really stuck with me, and painted a vivid picture in my head. I immediately saw the guy on the street corner dancing around with a "Cash 4 Gold" sign in his hands, thought of the probably 3 or 4 cash for gold coin commercials I had just seen earlier that day, and then just had to laugh to myself. How silly do these people look?
What's even sillier is how consumed we are with wealth, success, and the attitude that bigger and more is always better. We always want to one up the next guy, have the better job, have more money, buy more things. Money is our source of power and entitlement. This sense of entitlement is something that has really bothered me lately, and yet as I read this passage yesterday I realized that I myself have fallen in to the trap--I have a false sense of entitlement.
Business has slowed down a lot because the summer vacationers are gone, school is back in session, and the seasonals and snowbirds have yet to return from their northern homes. Customers know we need the money and the business and are taking advantage of that fact left and right. They have the money which gives them a sense power, yet they are doing anything and everything to try not to spend that money. We have these coupons circulating which have strict rules on the back, 1 per table, 1 per visit, etc. Wouldn't you know every table tries to use 2 of those things, complains when they can't, says they are regulars (which is funny because they just asked the most common 1st time guest question 5 minutes ago), and then lets my tip (aka my income) suffer drastically over something I have no control over. Awesome! You can't believe the ridiculous fusses and complaints I have heard lately just so people can get a little bit more free. So, I go home and complain to Brook about these cheap people who have no respect for me and how I need a job where people respect me and I make more money. I mean I have a degree, I am a good person, why am I stuck waiting on these people?
Umm ya, that has been my attitude lately--no bueno! It has really made me a grump! See the hypocrisy here? It's really easy to fall in to the worldly view of wealth and importance. Money and success are everything, right?
Wrong! That is why I love how this passage is put, we can all relate to it. "The purpose of these troubles is to test your faith...and by passing the test it gives praise, glory, and honor to God."
I have been filling out application after application thinking what is wrong with me--I am a hard worker, smart, ethical, etc. Why won't I get any bites, and when I do they don't pay enough or the hours are bad. I truly believe it's a testing of faith and patience. I believe God has a great plan for me and that he was just testing my heart a little first and he found some things he didn't like in there--greed, a little hypocrisy, and a false sense of entitlement.
I think we can all relate to this, we are not entitled to anything, but with God's grace and love he has given us the gift of love and salvation, and that through faith in Him all things are possible. So instead of a Cash 4 Gold type mentality let's shift to a Freedom 4 Faith mentality, because in the end what good is cash if you don't have your freedom?
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