Some Thoughts for the New Year

1Peter 1:6-7  In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,  (7)  so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The reason this blog exists – its purpose – is to validate, educate, and encourage people who “have been grieved by various trials,” as Peter puts it. Specifically, people who have been grieved by the trials produced by RASNs (revilers, abusers, sociopaths, narcissists). Evildoers in other words. And more than this, our purpose is to point people to Christ and the certain hope which is only found in Him. Let’s take encouragement then for this coming new year from the words we see here from the Apostle Peter.

“For a little while.” That small phrase is found over and over in Scripture. “A little while.” A short time. It’s just for “a little while.” When the rich man and Lazarus died, their earthly lives had been “for just a little while.” The rich man had his enjoyments and luxuries, “for a little while.” But now, that brief time was over and he found himself in hell – not for a little while, but for a timeless eternity without end. And so it was for Lazarus. His suffering had been for a little while. But now it was over and, unlike the rich man, Lazarus was now rich – for eternity.

“You have been grieved by various trials.” That is how Peter puts it. Anyone who has been the victim/target of a RASN knows this all too well. Grief. Trials. BUT, if we know Christ, if we have been born again to a living and therefore certain hope, we can rejoice even so. Why? Because our trials are only for “a little while.” The RASN’s evil will not be perpetrated upon us forever. There is an end point coming. Of that we can be certain. Furthermore, we can rejoice in suffering because the Lord is using these various trials to demonstrate to the world and to ourselves, that our faith given us by Christ, our salvation, is REAL. Genuine. Not some plastic fake but gold which is being refined by these fires of trial.

None of us know what 2025 holds for us. But the Lord does. Our days are in His hand – their number and their nature. But no matter what the divine script holds for us, we can know with certainty that Christ will never leave us nor forsake us, that His return is certain, that when we depart this world we, like Lazarus, will be with the Lord in glory AND for the praise of His glorious justice, the unrepentant RASN will join the rich man in hell. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning of everything and the end of everything. Just as He spoke the world into creation once, He will speak the New Heavens and Earth into existence. That is the Omega – that is how it is going to end – or rather, begin!

Our lives in this present world are brief. A flash. A blade of grass that flourishes, then withers, then passes away. Here, we are for “just a little while.” Whatever suffering and grief and loss you have or are experiencing now, if you know Christ as Savior and Lord, then your real life has begun. While your “corruptible flesh” as Paul puts it, is fading away, the new creation who you now are is growing and growing into the glory of Christ until that Day when He comes and raises you up in blinding glory. The sufferings we as His people experience here, these “for a little while sufferings,” will be found to have produced a refined, pure gold of faith which will be on display in the New Creation forever.

If, in that New Creation, anyone were to ask us – “wasn’t all that hard trouble difficult and costly for you?” Our reply, and it will be an honest reply, will be something like, “Eh? What trouble?”