1 Peter 5:10-11 (NIV) And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

I love the Word of God because it never tries to hide inconveniences or the fact that as followers of Christ, we will face trouble. Jesus told us so Himself (John 16:33). The verses above bring everything full circle. First, it highlights the fact that we have been called to eternal glory. Hallelujah! Then comes a reality check: we will face suffering here on earth. The suffering comes from the fact that we live in a corruptible world and everything that happens here such as wars, terrorist attacks, droughts, famines, weather events and many other things, we have to live through like everyone else does. But we go through these unfortunate events differently than those that don't have a relationship with Jesus because we don't go through them alone. Jesus is always with us protecting, defending, delivering and comforting us through it all. We do a disservice to anyone that we share the gospel with if we paint a perfect picture where nothing goes wrong once you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Sufferings also come from things that God allows to test and to grow our faith. It's the only way that our faith can grow and expand. It's even how Jesus learned obedience, according to the Word of God (Hebrews 5:8-9). It's best to be totally honest with everyone so that they know what to expect. Having said that, coming to know Jesus as Lord is still the best thing that could happen to anyone. It actually is the only thing that matters in the end.

All of this is all good and well, but the thing that moves me the most about the passage of scripture above is that it says that God Himself is the one that restores us from all that we encounter and all the trials and tests that we face in our lives. He is the one that uses the sufferings that we experience to make us strong, unmovable and unwavering. God does that personally. He is a personal God. Although He has ten thousand times ten thousand ministering angels (Revelation 5:11) at His disposal that He could send to help us, He comes Himself to minister to us. When Jesus was suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Word of God tells us that an angel ministered to Him in His suffering. Thank God for ministering angels! But God doesn't send angels to restore us. They can help us, but they can't restore us. Only God can do that, so He makes it His business to watch over us, strengthen us through suffering, and then to restore us, making us better and stronger than we were before all of the trials and the troubles.

In a master craftsman/apprentice relationship, the apprentice learns by the master craftsman allowing the apprentice to learn on the job by actually doing the work under His watchful eye. But there are some things that the master craftsman must do himself, because they take the expert skill level that he has from all the years working at his craft. In the same way, there are things that the Lord assigns to His mighty angels to do, but when it comes to us, His chosen people, it is only He Himself that can do the work necessary to make us steadfast and whole. No one else will do.

Pastor Joey Vazquez