When we are in the fires of trial, the quality of what we have built will be revealed…in our lives, our jobs, our families. The good stuff, the stuff of value and substance, is purified and shined up and shone for what it is. But the other stuff, that lacks real meaning or value, the stuff that hurts us and others, is not purified, but rather burned up in these same fires.
Read these words from 1 Corinthians 3:11-15…
“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”
Often these verses are applied to an eternal judgement, and maybe that is accurate. But I read them more as the fires of trial and temptation and hardship that we face in this life, as much as for eternity. Maybe it is because, as I see it, any eternal life doesn’t wait until this one is over to start.
I read these verses again a couple of days ago and spent a while reflecting on what they might mean to me and to us in these trying times. If these times are not a trial of fire, I don’t know what is! And here is what I am coming to see. What we have in us and what we have invested in and built up is revealed in the fire.
If our character is strong and our works are honest and the legacy we are building is one of integrity and generosity and compassion, the fires will illuminate that, even strengthen it. But if our character and our lives are characterized by judgement and anger and greed, by the pursuit of things that have no lasting value…those things tend to burn off in trials, leaving us with little to show for our efforts.
Yet, the verses say that even the one whose buildings are burned up is still saved, even if through the fire. It is not necessarily our lives that we lose in the trials, but what we have spent our lives doing.
And in that, there is grace, for there is an opportunity for a reset, a reboot, a chance to choose differently as we stare down the future.
Yes, sometimes trials end in tragedy and genuine loss. But sometimes they are doorways to new beginnings and new life. That is true for us as individuals, but it is also true for us corporately.
A couple of questions to ponder…What if this pandemic could really burn off the wood and straw that we have allowed to build up and it could reveal what is left? Would there be anything of value left? And how might this change the way we choose to live?