“See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”
Yesterday, we chatted about what the beginning looks like compared to what the end looks like. Gold in the raw form compared to gold in jewelry form. I was driving into to work this morning and the Lord told me to write about the process. I instantly knew what the Lord was talking about. We will dive a little deeper into gold smelting this morning. No worries, I will not be Dr. Science and bore all of you in a chemistry lesson. So here goes.
Gold comes from mines deep in the earth and is extracted with hammers that beat the gold out in chunks of rock. These chunks of rock have many other types of rock with the gold. The next step is to pulverize the rock with an even bigger hammer that smash the big rocks into smaller pieces. These pieces are then thrown into a furnace that is heated to over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat burns off the impurities that are attached to the gold as the rock pieces become liquid or molten rock, kind of like magma from a volcano. The next step is to add some chemicals to the rock soup to help the gold atoms all come together into gold clumps and slowly cool. These clumps of gold are then taken to places where it can be used in jewelry or electrical parts. Gold does not rust or tarnish (all the women can tell you that) so it is really good for many different things. We only then see the gold show up in jewelry form in the finished product.
That lesson points to what the Lord is showing us in the furnace. We are all in the furnace of life. Our Christian walk has us in certain phases along that process, kind of like the gold smelting process. We start out connected to some bad stuff. This bad stuff may have been connected to us for quite some time and it may take some rough pulverizing blows to begin to break those bonds. It is not until the Lord puts us in the fire that we begin to see the parts of us that need to be burned up and taken away. For some, this is as far as they go. Watching their life get pulverized is never fun. Stick with it though you are not done yet.
Everything in our lives seems to be melted and those friends and habits are now just a part of a mess. Yes, a mess of a liquid messed up life. The Lord then adds some chemicals to help us. Godly friends and good habits to replace the old ones. The goldy person the Lord is wanting to use is just now beginning to form. Your life starts to coalesce around like minded Christians who are teaching and edifying you until you call them close friends. These acquaintances are the perfect chemicals added by the Lord to mold you into what He wants you to be.
You are almost done. Having been plugged into church, the jewelry making center, you begin to hone your God given talents into His perfect workmanship. It is only then that your brilliance is seen by others. You see, the furnace is mostly a place of pulverizing and heat, but the product that the Lord is making cannot be noticed by everyone in that phase. Your gifts and talents are put into play in the house of God called the local church. This place molds the work of God into a usable tool for His workmanship. Random women come up to my wife and tell her what a pretty ring she is wearing. The ring attracts people. The finished work of Christ in your life will attract others to Christ.
Today, realize you are in the furnace of God. He is masterfully removing all the old and fashioning the new into a brilliant work of God that points others to Christ. So don’t fight the process God is controlling the heat. Stay in and let Him work.
Prayer: Father help us to endure the heat of your furnace. Help us to stay the coarse and not get discouraged when all we see is melting life around us. Help us to keep our eyes on you throughout this entire process. In Jesus name, amen.
Let It Go 
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