Right now, I am believing in God's sovereign hand in everything, but it is hard. And He has placed me in His refiner's fire yet again. This is a familiar place for me. I know it well - and it is a place I do not love, but yet at the same time, I do cherish it.
As a refiner of gold and silver places those precious metals in intense heat to allow the impurities to rise to the surface and be skimmed off so that what is left is a beautiful, pure, glowing substance, so the Great Refiner - Father God - puts us in His own version of intense heat. It's just that this intense heat comes in different forms...maybe it is a trial, or something you need to wait and be patient for...or maybe it's an illness or challenging situation that you need to be in (AKA: all those coworkers you love to deal with... just kidding!!) But whatever it is, God uses His own version of "heat" to draw impurities out of us...
He does not want to leave us where He found us...He wants to make us more and more into His image and see His reflection in us as the refiner sees his reflection in the gold or silver he purifies. He wants to draw out bad attitudes, negativity, crabbiness, flying off the handle if things don't go how we want or people don't act how we want...he puts us through His affliction to make us grow...and so that we have unshakable faith. So we ultimately glorify Him...
A few years ago I kept hearing patient endurance. "What in the world God...?" I muttered. Well He was teaching me patient endurance....and sometimes I still have to relearn the lesson...
I don't detest the refiner's fire as I once did...probably because I look back on all those afflictions He allowed me to go through (and walked with me each step of the way, might I add), and I also look at how I respond to things now 90% of the time and I can SEE how He has changed me for His glory...so I always know it will have a good result.
Hope was also a theme with me tonight. Jesus very plainly said to me, You don't have to trust others...but you do have to trust Me. Point well taken my Lord....And I have no reason to not trust Him as He has been nothing but faithful and good to me. Then I began to ponder Aaron Shust's song, "My Hope is in You." In that song he does not say, "My hope is in my job" or "My hope is in my physical fitness" or "My hope is in my spouse". No. He says, "My hope is in You, Lord, all the day long. I won't be shaken by drought or storm." Jesus calls us to have our hope in Him alone, as He alone can save, satisfy and fulfill us.
Refiner's fire. If it will bring me closer to You, Jesus, and make me more into Your image, I will gladly walk through the fire with you. After all, when you go into the fire with Jesus, you don't come out smelling like smoke.
In Christ,
Meg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugD0i5Y3cw8
No comments:
Post a Comment