Cultivating Metal and Mettle

I read 2 Peter this morning. It's been a long time since I've visited those pages (there's just so much good stuff in 66 books; how to keep up with it all?). In verses 5-9, it says: "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins."

I love that "in increasing measure." It seems so simple, but it's so easily forgotten. During the times when I let complacency have a front seat in my life, and when I have spent very little time actively pursuing the Lord... I have wondered why it is so difficult to hear His voice. I think this is why: unless I produce these qualities in increasing measure, consistently honing, practicing, and letting the Spirit shave off and sand down the rough spots... I won't be effective in this battle. This takes consistent self-reflection, consistent searching of my heart and rooting out seeds that don't belong there. It's important to make sure we are ready to fight this battle with the Lord, so as we step before Him, we always, always ask to see what needs to be rooted out. And praise God for His amazing grace; He is so good.

I was thinking about Peter's setting as he was writing this - how he was writing to a church scattered by persecution, and I compared it to the present circumstances where many of us are not meeting together in person; rather, a lot of churches are being responsible for meeting separately via live-stream or Zoom, etc. Our pastor (on Youtube, because our church is not holding "live" services) pointed out and strongly urged us, during this time, to make ourselves seeds, to grow our fruit wherever we find ourselves.

As I was praying over the wider international church this morning, I saw a picture of a dandelion seed-plant, one of those ones my kids love to pick and blow and watch the white seeds get carried on the wind. Those seeds are clustered together on a single head, but when the wind batters it, bends it, bows it over, the seeds release, fall apart, get carried away...

And plant somewhere else, maybe even out of sight of the other seeds. And then they grow their own seed-plants with many seeds. Have you ever picked weeds and tried to pull up dandelions? Those roots! They do not release from where they've been planted. You have to really dig around them to loosen the dirt enough to get the whole thing out.

So... besides the fact that I just compared the church to a weed, which is definitely not where the parable of the sower went... I love the thought that the Lord is using hard times to spread His church, grow His people, plant us firmly, produce new seeds.

In increasing measure, we are effective and productive. We need to send out deep roots, deeper still, so that when the winds come, we are even more effective.

If wind doesn't come, if everything is perfectly still, those seeds don't release and don't carry to other places. Our pastor called it the Diaspora (which... sounds to me just like... a seed, maybe it's the "spore" part of it): The spreading of the church. And the spreading of the church needs the winds of hardship and persecution sometimes to widen its borders.

One verse that has returned over and over and over for the last several weeks: "He will sit as a refiner of silver..." I've been praying for refinement of the church, but also that as the church goes through the fire and is refined and the dross melted away... that we will also not be destroyed. As a refiner of silver watches the metal carefully to be sure it doesn't go above the correct refining temperature, so God does with His church. 

He carefully, oh so tenderly, cultivates our metal, our mettle, in increasing measure, for effectiveness's sake. I'm praying that for each of us today.