And 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. (ESV)

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. (NIV)

Most kids keep their goldfish on a shelf. Small tank. Clean water. Safe.

A kid in my neighborhood tried something different. He put his goldfish in the wild. Big pond. Scummy water. Dangerous.

However, I think that kid was onto something. Because after a few months, I saw the miracle that Zoologists call indeterminate growth: goldfish don't have a fixed adult size. Their environment determines how big they get. And in the pond, these goldfish flourished. They multiplied, and over time, they each grew from a couple of inches to over a foot. 

Here’s the deal: When we’re in Christ, we’re no longer kept on a shelf. We get led into deeper waters. And those deeper waters are rarely clean. They’re murky. Unpredictable. Full of things we would never choose for ourselves. From the outside, the pond doesn’t look like a blessing. It looks like loss of comfort, loss of control, maybe even abandonment. But those who trust God in hard places grow. 

What’s Peter’s hope in suffering? It’s just for a little while. A season. He doesn't minimize our pain, but he does right-size it. This is the pond season. Temporary but transformational. 

What’s Peter’s post-pond season prediction? Absolute flourishing. He says God will restore you. Make you strong. Make you firm. Make you steadfast. He's not just going to get you through it. He's going to build something in you that the shelf life could never produce.

This is why Christian formation is enhanced in seasons of suffering. There’s a special kind of transformation Christians experience in the midst of murky waters. 

Following Jesus means we’ll get taken from the tank to the pond. That’s good. Because we too, have indeterminate growth in Christ. 

Written by Rainer Erani