Only a Little While

Sometimes in the midst of the afflictions and ordinary stresses of daily life, we may cry out, “How long, O Lord? I can’t see beyond today’s pain. What will tomorrow bring? Will you be there for that affliction too?”

This question is utterly urgent, because Jesus said, “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). We tremble at the thought of being among “those who shrink back and are destroyed” (Hebrews 10:39). We are not playing games. Suffering is a horrible threat to faith in God’s future grace.

Therefore, it is a wonderful thing to hear Peter promise the afflicted and weary Christians, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).

The assurance that he will not delay beyond what we can endure, and that he will abolish the flaws we bemoan, and that he will establish forever what has tottered so long — that assurance comes from the God of “all grace.”

God is not the God of some grace — like bygone grace. He is “the God of all grace” — including the infinite, inexhaustible stores of future grace that we need to endure to the end.

Faith in that future grace, strengthened by the memory of past grace, is the key to enduring on the narrow and hard road that leads to life.