The Plumbline

Back in the days of the pioneers, there was a crazy flurry of activity to 'hit it big' in the gold mining 'rushes' of the day. Someone would come across the 'mother-load' and the rush would be on. Whether that sparkly stuff was panned from streams or chiseled from the walls of the caves that housed their rich vein, the result was the same - it had to be melted down before it could really be used. Along came the silver and copper mines, each yielding their own 'ores' of great promise - each requiring their own type of 'smelting' processes, but each producing various 'qualities' of 'finished product' as a result. The smelting process usually involved what came to be known as the 'crucible' - that smaller collection spot within the larger furnace where the refined metals would be collected. While the furnace produced the heat to accomplish the refining process, the crucible acted as a collection device to capture the purified...

3  As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan,    so our lives are assayed by God.  (Proverbs 17:3 The Message) Yesterday, we took a look at the process of "stoking" the furnace of our hearts - getting us to a place that God can work with us, forming us into what it is he envisions for us.  Today, I'd like to continue to explore another instrument of the craftsman used in the process of purification - it is what is known as the crucible.  The crucible is similar to the furnace, but its purpose is not so much to heat to the point of being "pliable" in the hand of the craftsman as it is to bring to the surface that which is impure in the substance he is working with.  For some of us, we feel the "heat" of the crucible much more often than we'd like.  Take heart, that really means that God is just at work bringing to the surface the things in our lives that he needs to remove by his tender care. When I lived in Alaska, I got to know a gentle...

3  As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan,    so our lives are assayed by God.  (Proverbs 17:3) I lived in Alaska for three years.  One of the biggest "tourism" souvenirs that you could take with you back to the lower 48 was a gold pan.  Often, they would be fully painted with some scenery of the great gold rush days of Alaska or just an outdoor rendering.  The served as a memory of the big gold bonanza that brought many a prospector to the territory.   Silver is mined - then must be separated from all the various impurities that it is surrounded by such as sulfur, arsenic, antimony, chlorine, or argentite.  It is rarely found in some big clump that you can take out of the mine and say that it was purely silver.  There is a refining process that must occur in order to separate the other stuff from the silver.  Look at what silver is found "clinging" to: Sulfur - when burned, it can have a suffocating odor. ...