When I heard that Dr. Paul Tripp, noted author/teacher/counselor was going
to be speaking to a group of men at
What a remarkable evening it turned out to be. Dr. Tripp chose to speak on the subject, “What You Want is Not What You Need.” What we commonly want, he pointed out, is security, and the absence of trouble. From God’s point of view, however, what we need is purifying. And that means being thrust into the Refiner’s fire.
Reflecting on 1 Peter 1:3-9, Dr. Tripp commented that it paints a picture of life in the present as one characterized by “grief and trial” (see v. 6). And those trials, though often painful, are part of God’s loving purpose to purify us. Alluding to the image of gold being refined by fire (v. 7), he said, “When you come to Christ you are an ‘ore-ific’ Christian.” There’s gold there, but it’s in the form of ore. It has to be purified.
That process is really an expression of God’s great love for us. “God could not be a loving Father,” he said, “and leave you in that condition. You need to be changed and purified if you are to be the one you are supposed to be and useful for what God wants you to do. As an act of deep and abiding grace, your Redeemer will boil you.”
Paul Tripp and his family know what it is like to be boiled. In fact, much of Dr. Tripp’s address was built around a recent and ongoing tragedy in their family. A little over a year ago daughter Nicole was crushed when a drunk driver careered off the road and pinned her to a wall as she walked home from work. Months of painful recovery have left her disabled both physically and emotionally. The experience has been an ordeal not only for Nicole but for her mother and father.
“That’s not where I wanted to go in my life,” Paul said. “I don’t naturally want to be holy; I don’t want growth experiences. I want an unchallenged kingdom of delights. I want a comfortable and predictable existence.”
Aren’t we all like that? Yet, he insisted, God isn’t interested in our enjoyment so much as he is in our character. “Your God has something hugely more glorious in mind for you than a thick juicy steak. It is God’s purpose that we should be partakers of his nature – that we should be godly.” And because that’s the case, he is going to purify the ore through “grief and trial.”
We need, he said, “to teach a theology of ‘uncomfortable grace;’ a ‘grace of refinement.’” That’s an unusual way of thinking about grace isn’t it? Usually we connect grace with the blessings of joy and peace and forgiveness, not with the blessings of purifying fire. Yet that’s precisely how God’s continuing grace shows itself in the Christian life. “God can’t look at you in your raw state and say, ‘That’s OK.’ That’s not redemption! That’s not love!” He loves us so much that he is intent on making us “people of such character that he is pleased to spend all eternity with us.”
There’s an underlying principle in this that we need to master. Paul Tripp put it like this: “God will take you where you do not want to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.”
We may not like to hear those words, but we need to. If we don’t understand what God is doing in our lives there is going to be a massive “agenda gap” between us and God. And agenda gaps produce unrest, irritation and complaining. On the other hand, “When you stop having an agenda conflict with your Lord, you can have a level of happiness and fulfillment far beyond what you can imagine – even when it hurts.”