Refining by Fire

People talk about being refined by God.

In my early, naïve days, I used to think it went something like this:

God: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You’ve done so well that I will honor you by gently polishing off any little rough edges, so that you can be of even more use to me.”

Shall we all pause to laugh at this?

Anyone who has been refined (and haven’t we all?) knows that it rarely, if ever, goes that way!

My dad was a jewelry maker. I used to sit and watch him cast beautiful rings, necklaces, etc. He always purified and refined the metal he was using. It was not a gentle process. It was loud and smelly and even explosive.

He’d put a rough chunk of metal into the chamber, heat it with a torch, drop some harsh detergent powder on top, melt everything together and watch the impurities come to the top to be scooped out. The torch was loud, hot metal splashed everywhere and the scooping of impurities was messy.

But, after that rather violent process, the metal became usable and could be made into something beautiful.

I’ve had a lot of refining in my life and if I’m honest, I probably needed it. And, let me tell you, I can’t remember a time when it was a pleasant experience. Being in the fire is not fun. Having your impurities rise to the surface is embarrassing and the scooping process is hard.

I had friends who would pray, “Refine me, oh Lord!” And, I would jump back and say, “No! Don’t include me in this!” Because, who in their right mind would pray for the agony that was sure to follow?

I used to focus on the misery and not the result. The beautiful transformation that came later didn’t seem worth the pain of refinement.

As usual, God knew best and I kept going through the process of, let’s face it, blasting my impurities out. I’m nowhere near perfect, of course, but I have grown enough to see that the times of refinement were necessary. Now, I can look back on the harsh times in my life and see that they shaped me in ways nothing else could have.