There’s a Substack newsletter that I read most weeks called “Hippy Highland Living”. It’s a bit funny that I read it because I’m 99% sure I’m not the target audience, I don’t live in the Highlands, I’m not a hippy, and I’m not a woman. I am, however, a fan of nature writing and some weeks, Molly shares some lovely nature writing about An t-Eilean Sgiatheanach1.
Most recently, she wrote about the simple joys in a very ordinary week that made her smile. It’s a small post about the unremarkable things that bring even a small amount of happiness to a person. Over the course of a week, it’s rarely a big moment but lots of little moments.
In the life of the Christian, this proves to be the case as well. As much as we long for them, mountain-top experiences are rare. In our devotional time, we rarely get the rush of suddenly understanding new truths about God’s word. Most days, actually, feel terribly ordinary, utterly unremarkable, and distinctly pointless.
And yet, Christians are called to be a people who can rejoice even during trials2.
The tragedy of a post like Molly’s is that, nice as it is, it’s trying to express gratitude without having anyone to express it to. When your worldview begins with “the material world is all that there is”, there can be no true gratitude. Stuff just happens.
For the Christian, however, we know that nothing is meaningless. We know that reality is made up of both the seen and the unseen. We know that there is a Giver giving these good gifts to us. And so it is good for us to consider these gifts. It’s easy to forget about these things because they just become a part of the air we breathe in Christian culture, but these are remarkable gifts.
In fact, as I have been reading through 1 Peter, it has become apparent to me that much of what he is writing is stuff that we know but have forgotten is true. We get caught up in the day-to-day and forget that these realities really are true of us right now. So much of the Christian life is future-focused but 1 Peter gives us much that we can enjoy right now.
To that end, here is an incomplete list of gifts that I can find as I continue to read and meditate on 1 Peter.
- Meaning and purpose for life (1:1-2; 1:4; 1:9)
- Salvation (1:5, 9, 21, 23)
- True community (1:22; 2:5; 2:9-10)
- The knowledge that someone is praying for you (1:1-2; 5:10-14)
- True dignity (1:9)
- Someone who loves you enough to die for you (1:18-19; 2:24; 3:18)
- A source of strength to serve (4:10-11)
- Someone who cares for you (5:7)
- The Isle of Skye. I’m learning Gaelic along with a few people in the local community so I have to try to use it when I can. ↩
- (1 Peter 1:6) Notice, though, that Peter is not naive about the trials that will be endured. He writes knowing that his audience will be grieved by various trials. This is not a cheap rejoicing or a rejoicing without any hint of sadness. ↩