After You Have Suffered a While. ..

Our Text:
1 Peter 5 : 10
"But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you."

In Genesis 26 we find the story of Isaac when famine hit the land in which he dwelt.  He decided to leave and go to Egypt as his father Abraham had done before him.  The Lord told him not to go, but to remain in the land until He had fulfilled the promises He made to his father Abraham.

In verse 8, the Bible tells us that "... When he had been there a long time..." things didn't get better, they looked like they might get worse in fact because he had a run in with the King concerning his wife, Rebekah.

So the picture is very dismal. He had a family to care for, there was famine in the land which didn't appear to be ready to ease any time soon. The men were interested in his wife and that could have provided his family with a much needed break from starvation. Now before anyone gets all riled up and indignant, let's remember what's going on in Nigeria at this time. Men are prostituting their wives for contracts so as to have money to feed the family, mothers are prostituting themselves and their daughters for the same reason!  Or it could have gotten him killed,  let's remember Uriah,  Bathsheba's husband.

Neither scenario played out here because the Lord Himself intervened and Abimelech warned the men of the kingdom off Isaac's  wife, so we don't know how far Isaac would have carried the deception.

And so they stayed in the land and continued to suffer with the rest of the people. This wasn't a hardship peculiar to Isaac and his family.  The entire Kingdom was under the curse of famine. Also let us consider that the people for whom he was responsible were not very understanding. Children don't understand with the parents that they have to stay hungry because there's no food or money for food.  These people in Isaac's family must have wondered why he wouldn't go down to Egypt like his father before him did,  why he would subject them to such hardships by making them stay in want.

Now when Peter wrote this letter, he wasn't writing to an individual but to the churches, particularly the leaders and elders of the churches. In 1 Peter 5 : 1, he said "And now, a word to you who are elders in the churches. I, too, am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ. And I, too, will share in His glory when He is revealed to the whole world. As a fellow elder, I appeal to you:" (NLT)

So to the elders of the churches it was that he said "after you have suffered a while. .."  Leaders will have to suffer a lot at the hands of the sheep as Jesus our master suffered at our hands.  They will not always understand and/or cooperate.  They will complain,  criticize, and murmur like the children of Israel did with Moses.  It comes with the territory and leaders have to rise above these things and continue to shepherd the flock to glory.

Continuing with our account of Isaac's experience in Genesis 26, in verse 12 we find that God indeed perfected, established, strengthened, and settled him "after he had suffered a while." In Genesis 26:13, we find that "the man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous."

But Isaac's challenges did not end because that wasn't the pinnacle of God's plan for him,  Abimelech's servants closed up the wells Abraham, his father had dug.  Please notice that while he was suffering they didn't touch his wells but once he became prosperous, they began to torment him and his family.

Then he was exiled from his home by the King himself.  He moved to Gerar Valley and this time the inhabitants didn't close up the wells but claimed them from him. He named the one "argument" And the next one "hostility." We will discuss these names in a later posting.

He dug up a third well over which there was no contest and he named it "Rehoboth" because the Lord had made room for him. From here he moved on to Beersheba.

Please try to imagine how long you can survive without water,  and maybe we will understand the importance of, and significance of closing up the wells against Isaac and his family.

Note: Isaac was very wealthy but notice that he remained humble. He did not fight back when Abimelech's servants closed up his wells, neither did he fight the shepherds at Gerar.

When the Lord begins to perform His oath to us, let us remember how humble we were in our low circumstances and not change when we are prosperous. In 1 Peter 5 : 5  we are told that "... God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

May His peace remain with us all who are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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