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^“8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹ Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

This entails just a little back-tracking, but I thought it would be good to read verses 8-11 in ‘The Message’

‘’Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.’’

 We have seen that the context for 1 Peter is suffering. The church to which Peter wrote was facing hard times. But there is a key message to hold on to in this paragraph. Here it is:

‘’The suffering won’t last forever.’’

 An old negro-spiritual says,

‘All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

Whether your suffering today comes with a capital ‘S’ or a small ‘s’ it is temporary. It may feel like forever while you have to endure it, but the dawn will come; the day will break, and the Son will blaze in all His splendour. We have been called to God’s ‘’eternal glory’’, and by His everlasting power we can prevail.

PRAYER: Lord, in any sufferings we undergo help us to keep our eyes on you, and fill our souls with an ever-growing hope.

^“7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” NIV

A friend told me about being in a session, on a week-end retreat, in which the facilitator encouraged the participants to pummel this text with questions such as these:

• If I’ve ‘’Cast’’ it, where is it?
• Do I still have it?
• Is it in my hand?

The philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote:

‘You are to cast all care away; if you do not cast all care away, you retain it and do not become absolutely joyful. And if you do not cast it absolutely upon God, but in some other direction, you are not absolutely rid of it.’

Tom Hale says, ‘We may not be able to get rid of our trials and troubles, but we can get rid of our anxiety. We can give our anxiety to God (Psalm 55:22).’ ‘The Applied New Testament Commentary’, p.921.

‘God is linked to your little life by his tender regard and care for you.’ F.B.Meyer: ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.617.

‘’Cast your cares on the Lord
    and he will sustain you;
he will never let
    the righteous be shaken’’ (Psalm 55:22)

^“6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” NIV

I had just finished writing yesterday’s note about the need to be intentional re humility, when someone sent me this quote from Dallas Willard:

‘Grace is opposed to earning, but not to effort’.

Some effort is involved in putting on clothes!

In my view, today’s verse parallels Philippians 2:1-11. We see there this principle at work. Jesus humbled Himself ‘’under God’s mighty hand’’ and, ‘’in due time’’ He was exalted. This is what I refer to as ‘God’s law of gravity’: Whatever goes down must come up!

‘’Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…he humbled himself…’’ (Philippians 2:5,8).