My nephew graduated from high school last May, so I called to congratulate him. In the course of that conversation, I asked him what he had learned. “Not much,” was the reply, “I played a lot of video games and ate fast food.” I then asked what his plans were. “I don't know, I guess I'll live at home until I can find someone who'll pay me for playing video games and eating fast food.” Somewhat shocked by these responses, I hung up the phone.

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A month later, I got a letter from my nephew asking for financial help. “You see,” he wrote, “I became a Marine cause it's an easy job, so I'm spending much more on video games and fast food.” I was appalled. The Marine Corps, easy?! Certainly, that can't be true! I have so much respect for the Marine Corps. The Corps values are honor, courage, and commitment, badges you earn through discipline, dedication, and perseverance. If you earn the right to be called a Marine, you are a member of a family that you can depend on, and them on you, no matter the trials, tribulations, and hardships that might be thrust against you. If you survive Marine training, you are more mature and complete, not lacking in anything. And yet, my listless nephew had become a Marine? In a month, no less? How could I continue respecting the Marine Corps?

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And then, I woke up.

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Now be honest, as you read about my dream, you were agreeing with me. You wouldn't want a Marine Corps like that. If it was, being a Marine would have no meaning. So, imagine if God's eternal Kingdom was filled with people like the nephew in my dream, people lackadaisical in their faith. Like waves of the sea, they are here today, gone tomorrow, tossed about, enslaved to the wind (James 1:6). Would you respect a God who enabled such people to enter His Kingdom?

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Fortunately, like a Marine Corps Drill Sergeant, God is not an enabler. Galatians 6:7 makes clear that “God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” But you're not sowing blind. God is actively honing you to sow eternal spiritual and physical joy. And He's doing it with the furnaces of life.

Be encouraged when you face trials and tribulations. I'm not trivializing the hardships you face, just know that as you face them, God is refining you in the furnaces of life. In this way you will suffer, as Jesus Christ suffered, but you will also be glorified, as Jesus Christ is glorified (Rom. 8:17). Use these trials as opportunities to persevere in your faith. James goes so far as to say, “consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2), and Peter adds, “for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet. 1:9). Isn't that worth a hip and an oorah?

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Peter also encourages us to keep our trials in perspective, for “though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Pet. 1:6-7).

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Think of that day, my brothers and sisters. That day when Jesus returns and judges you “mature and complete, not lacking in anything” (James 1:4). What a glorious day it will be when all the saints, you and I, are welcomed into eternal salvation with our loving Father. A salvation given by grace through a faith tested and honed by the Lord our God (Eph. 2:8).

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So let it be an encouragement to you that you will join a family of others whose faith, like yours, was forged in fire. A faith measured more valuable than gold by the Creator of gold. Consider it joy when your faith is tested. Finally, “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).

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Semper Fidelis.