For just a little while

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. (I Peter 1:6-9)

One of the hardest things for some of us to come to grips with is that we have to face and endure trials. Yes, the timeframe may be limited, but why on earth do we have to face them at all? Peter was writing to a group of believers who were likely facing great persecution on a daily basis, yet he tells them to rejoice and take hope. How is it possible to rejoice in the midst of hard things like this? I think Peter wants us to realize these things are only temporary - they are for a little while. They will not endure, but when our faith is put to the test in the midst of these trials, it will emerge even stronger and purer than before the trials came our way. We don't have to understand how fire purges to see the beauty of what is produced - we just need to know the fire is necessary to bring forth the beauty of what would otherwise be hidden.

A trial has a way of changing our focus - we get a little less earthly focused and turn our eyes toward our heavenly Father just a bit more. We 'lean in' and find our foothold in him, not in our own strength. Most of the trials I have endured did more than just change my focus - they showed me where I am the weakest and where I have been attempting to compensate for that weakness in my own power or effort. If a trial can do that for us, maybe they aren't something to be dreaded, but something we might want to embrace. Another thing I have realized in each trial is that God never abandons me to my own devices - he remains with me, surrounds me with his love, and walks me through the trial. If a trial can help us see him just a little better, isn't it worth it?

A lot of things will attempt to shake our faith in this world, but a 'tested faith' is not likely to be shaken. Yes, there will be some 'shaking', but it won't take us down. It will bring to the surface that which needed exposure, as well as help us send down roots just a bit deeper into the soil of our faith. A tree without wind will not send down strong roots. The wind challenges the tree to 'take hold' in much the same way a trial challenges us to consider where we find our 'hold' in life. If it is only surface deep faith, we will likely crumble in the midst of the shaking. If we face each trial with the determination to set our roots deeper, we are likely to develop a strength of faith that is anchored well. Just sayin!

The making of a Royal Beauty

Now and again, mom begins a discussion by saying she doesn't know what she has done in this lifetime to 'deserve' all the pain she experiences because of her arthritis, stenosis, and neuropathy. Any one of those can be quite debilitating - add all three together and you rarely have a day when one or the other isn't a troubling thing. Add to this that she is legally blind, hard of hearing, and 100 years old, and you can see why she might just 'bemoan' some of these ailments once in a while! While we may not understand the 'why' behind the present set of worries and woes that we experience, we can be assured of one very important fact - the day is coming when we will live healed and whole once again if our hearts are surrendered to Christ!

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. (I Peter 1:3-7 MSG)

It is our faith that is proven in the fires of all these present trials we may endure, my friends. We might not fully appreciate that as we are going through those trials, but the purest of gold isn't just 'found' somewhere along the way - it is exposed and rises to the top in the fire. I get it - fire isn't comfortable, nor is it desirable when the exposure has been long. I also have had many a conversation with God about 'why' some things had to go the way they did in my life and have come to the conclusion on more than one occasion that there really was no other way to 'prove' the 'metal' of character any other way. The fire was the turning point for something within me - it brought out some things I may not have realized needed to rise to the surface so they could be 'taken out' of my life, as well as exposing some things that needed to be realized for the beauty that was really there.

Healed and whole is a good goal, but if we live with the expectation of seeing that in totality while here on earth, we have unrealistic expectations set in our minds. We aren't going to beat disease 100% of the time - colds will happen, flu will knock us down a notch or two on occasion, and even bones will become brittle and less 'movable' over time. Parts wear out! We aren't going to avoid all calamity in life - storms will tear away roofing, waters will invade spaces where pipes didn't hold secure, and cars will get dings. We don't control the weather, nor can we observe pipework hidden behind drywall or buried beneath the earth. These things are not always in our direct control - so we will have to face them when they arise. We aren't going to be able to keep out all manner of temptation - media will bombard us in every direction, opportunities will present themselves, and desires will still mount an attack within us. We are human!

The very best news I can share with you is that Jesus isn't going to abandon us in the midst of the disease, calamitous event, or incessant temptation. He is going to be there in the midst of the 'fire', not because he wants to see us 'burn', but because he wants to show us how much beauty is being exposed in the midst of it. He doesn't allow the fire to punish us - he allows it to purify us. At first, this seems kind of cruel, but when we stop to consider the beauty produced because of the fire, we might just reconsider the value of it. Yes, we can get excited about the time when we will be whole and healed. Yes, it is something assured to each of us. Yes, the time will come when all these present worries just slip away. In the meantime, there might just be a little refining going on behind the scenes in our lives that is producing within us a thing of 'royal beauty' that compares to no other. Just sayin!

Turning up the heat a little

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 substance which would emerge from the furnace.

As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan, so our lives are assayed by God.  (Proverbs 17:3)

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 - all important elements, but not really desirable for us to wear or use in our eating utensils! It is rarely found in some big clump, or small dust particles such as you have with gold. There is a refining process that must occur in order to separate the other stuff from the silver so you are left with the silver alone. Silver is 'bound to' or 'clings to' other substances and it must be 'extracted' from the stuff that it clings to or that which clings to it.

Sulfur - when burned, it can have a suffocating odor. Its various uses are for the production of gunpowder, in the formulation of medicines to kill various germs, and in the vulcanizing process of making rubber. While it has a benefit to us, it doesn't really belong to the silver, nor is the silver made any stronger by it being there.

Arsenic - the interesting thing about arsenic is that it vaporizes when heated, has a great metallic luster which gives it an appearance of beauty, and is quite poisonous if it is ingested. Now, I don't know about you, but something that that just gives me an appearance of beauty, but is 'poisonous' by nature isn't all that appealing! I don't think we'd want that stuff around too long!

Antimony - a kind of lustrous metal compound that looks good, but has very little value as a metal. It has one main use as an addition to metal alloys to give them strength. It is the item usually added to the mix when someone is manufacturing semi-conductors. The important thing to remember is that it is quite toxic - although useful, it carries a very high risk by being present.

Chlorine - we know that chlorine has many uses, but its main use is in the purification process because it has the ability to kill bacteria. It is toxic in both its gaseous and more "visible" forms such as liquid or crystal. Sometimes it is a silent killer since it can escape without notice and be carried pretty far on the winds. There is really a great risk in keeping something so volatile and lethal around.

Argentite - this mineral usually never exists alone. It is found in the silver mines along with the silver, clinging to the silver as part of the ore. It is lead grey in color and is very unstable once exposed to air, so it is not really of any use as a mineral. It is a 'cling-on', but it is useless if it cannot 'ride on' something else. Remove it and the silver is still strong - keep it around and it just makes silver ugly.

Okay, I did not want to bore you with all kinds of information on the minerals of silver mining, but I wanted to refer to each of these just a little bit to bring some clarity to why this analogy of silver in a crucible is used to describe God's work in our lives. It is important for us to see just what God may be doing by placing us in circumstances that we refer to as the furnace - the refining "crucible" of trial.
We may have some "sulfur-like" behavior that we need to have brought to the surface and separated from our lives - such as anger or wrath. When it is allowed to remain "combined" with the silver - we have a "combustible" part of our character that does not bring honor to God. Arsenic may look good, adding some type of "luster" to our character, but it is toxic. We might have some types of "toxic" character traits, such as gossip, malice, or envy that God knows have the capacity to be extremely "toxic" if they are allowed to remain. He puts us through the purifying process in order to remove these from our lives. 

 
Antimony gives the appearance of "looking good", but the presence of the "mask" never determines the reality of what is hidden. God knows that a transparent Christian is more valuable than one that looks good on the outside and is hiding nothing of value on the inside. Antimony is kind of like being this intensely strong appearing Christian on the outside, but being a blubbering idiot on the inside!
Chlorine has both a positive and negative affect - it can be a purifying agent, but not until it is "processed". It must be separated from all the other impurities, then it has to be used very carefully or it burns! We can liken this to either giving off a "sweet smelling odor" that delights God, or being "toxic" in what we emanate, burning the world around us. Argentite is absolutely worthless when it is exposed to air - it does nothing to lend to the strength or beauty of the silver once it is exposed. That is the same with any secret sin in our lives - as long as it is hidden in the core of our inner man, it gets along just fine. Once exposed to the Word of God, the sin shows the true corruptibility of its presence. God always uses the furnace and crucible of circumstance (trial) to remove the stuff that only serves to contaminate our spiritual beauty and our testimony. The next time you are going through the fire, you might ask God what "worthless mineral" he is focusing on separating from your life at that moment in time. The "smelting" process God uses is designed to produce the clarity of pure, refined silver - gleaming in all its beauty, reflective of the image of Jesus. Just burnin!

NO, not the furnace again!

Silver is purified in the crucible, gold in the furnace, but motives of the heart are judged by the Eternal.  (Proverbs 17:3 VOICE)

Richard Nixon once said, "The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire."  If you really stop to think on that one, he was pretty close to the truth.  The steel doesn't become steel because it dreams of being steel one day.  It doesn't even know what is about to happen to it when it approaches the fire of the furnace. It is kind of naive in a sense, because it just trusts the one handling it to make something beautiful from the carbon and iron when it is combined in the heat of the furnace.  In essence, we don't really know what will come of our lives, but when we trust the one who made all the elements of our lives to put those elements to use as he sees fit, we find the object "refined" as he imagined it to be from the beginning.

The furnace isn't a place for wimps.  In fact, most of us don't even realize we are even approaching the furnace until the heat is so great that we cannot help but notice it!  The iron and carbon are mined - much in the same way you and I find some of the things in our lives coming forth from within us that need to be "taken to the fire" in order to become a thing of beauty in his hands.  Motives aren't always all that lovely or perfect, are they?  In much the same way as iron is okay and carbon is all right, we have motives which are okay and all right, but God's desire is to see motives that shine with brilliance - the brilliance only produced in the heat of the fire!

The furnace brings a refining - the process of removing what shouldn't remain. What might remain unnoticed to the naked eye is often exposed in the furnace. The motives of our heart which are less than pure - adding something to the mixture of our lives which need not be there or actually weakens the strength of what has the potential of being brought out of us needs to be exposed.  The furnace has a way of exposing that which is hidden - that which weakens - and than which in essence contaminates the whole.

We don't just jump at the chance to go through the furnace because we don't always want to know what lies deep within our inner man.  We sometimes just want to be "left alone" so that we can just exist as we are.  The problem with us being left alone is that we don't see one strength mesh with another, and all that weakens us being removed.  This only happens in the fire!  There isn't any other process to get us to the point of being refined to the point that we are brilliant, strong, and of the greatest use to the one who created us!  As much as we may try to avoid it - nothing produces purity in quite the same manner. Just sayin!

Purify me

Yesterday we discussed passion and purpose.  We have one more character trait to consider in our "P" List which is purity.  Now, this sometimes gets overlooked in our consideration of character traits to "put on" because we don't live in a very "pure" world, do we?  It is hard to make pure choices when all around you others are bombarding you with all kinds of wrong ones.  Purity is the freedom from anything which debases (reduces in quality or value), contaminates (adding/mixing in that which makes unclean), or pollutes (corrupts or defiles).  In the most literal sense, impurity is the "adding in" of something which does not belong.  That which does not belong actually changes the consistency or integrity of what does.

You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.  (Matthew 5:8 MSG)

But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God. And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own.  (I John 3:2-3 MSG)

Purity of heart - mind, will, and emotions untainted by that which "adds in" the things with confuse, bring conflict in our motives, or sets us up to rely upon the unreliable.  It is with pure hearts we are able to see God - for God is pure.  Children like to emulate adults, don't they?  They mimic behaviors they see in the adults they are frequently around.  The same is true of a child of God - we mimic the behaviors of the one we behold the most frequently.  If we are beholding Christ, we mimic his behaviors.  If we are beholding others who are not like Christ, we might just begin to mimic theirs.  

In essence, purity is the absence of something.  I think this is where we sometimes get it wrong, because we somehow think purity is the "adding" of something rather than allowing something to be removed.  Throughout scripture, there are portions which refer to things like the refiner's fire.  The fire of the refiner burns hot, allowing the metals to melt, bringing to the surface the things which are "contaminants" in the metals - those things which will weaken the integrity and strength of the metal.  We also see the idea of the threshing wheel - the place where the grain is turned over and over again until the grain is separated from the unusable part known as the chaff.  The chaff is blown away, the wheat remains.  There is also the idea of the winemaker observing his wine.  As the grapes are crushed, the juices are extracted, leaving behind that which will only add bitterness and impurity to the finished product.  All these speak to the idea of being free from something which contaminates, weakens, or renders less than useful. 

Purity is the absence of the "contaminating" influences which impact our choices in life.  Whenever we are faced with choices, we find ourselves "weighing" the choices.  Why?  One appears better than the other - it has some "merit" which makes us want to make one choice over the other.  When we are making choices from a pure heart, they will be wise ones.  When we have impurities in our heart (mind, will or emotions), we might just find ourselves making choices which don't produce the purest product in the end.

Purity is actually the result of several things:

- Cleansing:  We often think of cleansing as that which is accomplished through some process of scrubbing, sanitizing, or sweeping away.  God might just think of cleansing as any process which actually empties us.  Empty vessels are readied to receive something afresh.  Cleansing actually "freshens" us - readying us for the new thing God wants to do within.

- Sifting:  Mom had a sifter back in the day.  We don't so much use them today.  In fact, they are hard to find.  The purpose of the sifter was to separate.  The coarse parts were separated from the finer parts.  This is exactly how God uses this process in our lives - he separates the coarser (unwholesome) parts from the finer parts.  

- Burning:  Not too many of us want to jump at this one, because the furnace is a "hot" place.  If a farmer has a stump right in the middle of his field, he may work at removing that stump for a long time.  Digging it out may not seem practical.  Leaving it there allows for it regrow and is a hindrance to the plow.  He will often resort to burning it out.  He exposes it as much as possible and then burns it.  As the burning process occurs, the stump is "consumed".  In the consumption of the stump, it reduces in size and strength.  The fire of God's Word is kind of like this in our lives - it consumes us, reducing anything which will present a hindrance to our spiritual, emotional, or relational health.

So, as we wrap up our "P" List today, let's keep in mind passion and purpose in light of our latest trait, purity.  Purpose is the reason we exist, passion is what gives us the "umph" to fulfill our purpose, and purity is the basis by which we see God's purpose fully come alive in each and every aspect of our lives.  So, instead of resisting the cleansing, sifting, and burning in our lives, maybe we'd do well to embrace it as the means by which we come into what God fully purposes for us.  Just sayin!

Potency and Purity

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 gentleman that was into looking for gold.  He used a process of "panning" for gold in the streams and rivers of the area.  He did not hit any big "mother lode" of a gold find, but he found enough to make it worth his while.  As I would watch him go through the arduous process of sifting that sand, stone, and debris through the gold pan, I observed his tenacity for the process.  Slowly, he'd let water in and out of the pan, shifting the contents back and forth, until all that remained were tiny flakes of gold in the midst of just a little sand at the bottom of the pan.  That gold would catch the rays of the sun and glimmer brightly in the midst of the sand that remained.  He'd pluck out the gold bits, placing them carefully in a pouch he maintained for that purpose, and then he'd "dig in" for another plate of sand, debris, and stones.


Whether it is the craftsman at the crucible, refining the impurities from the metal substance being heated, or the gold miner gently sifting the debris away until only the "shiny stuff" was visible, both are reflective of the process of getting the impurities out of the way so the "good stuff" is seen.  Did you ever stop to consider that we often don't see the "good stuff" until there is enough agitation in our lives to bring it out clearly?  We often resist the agitation of our souls - because it hurts - without realizing that without that agitation, the good stuff is always going to be masked by the other stuff that gets in the way of it!


I see a word used in this passage that we don't use so much in today's communication - assay.  There are two meanings of this word that I think apply to our passage today:


1)  To examine or analyze - the goal of the process of the crucible is to determine the measure of what is contained within.  When God goes about the work of assaying our lives, he is bringing us through one examining process after another.  No part of the assaying of our character is unnecessary - it all serves a purpose of exposing the impurities and bringing out only the best in us.  


2)  To determine the potency of something - the process of assaying a substance is to see what "strength" that substance is capable of producing.  When a scientist assays the various substances that make up a product, they are really looking to see if the strength of the combined substances will make the substance more or less potent.  God only looks for that which will lend potency to our lives - all the other stuff he wants to remove.  


The process of assaying is really a process of analysis.  Therefore, the crucible is an instrument of analysis in our lives.  The crucible results in a lot of agitation of the substance contained within - "good stuff" is hidden deep and must be uncovered.  God is not too timid about how he goes after that which is hidden within - both the good and the bad.  When he gets the bad to the surface, he gently removes it, freeing us from that which impacts our potency and purity.  When he sees the good stuff becoming clearer and clearer, he is delighted because he knows we are developing the strength of character that will give us the potency to stand strong in this world.


God's goal in the crucible - in the refining process - is not to break us, but to bring out our highest potential, our greatest potency, and our strongest character.  The process involves a little agitation in order to uncover the "good stuff", but without that agitation, we'd never really get to see the beauty his grace is able to produce in our lives.  So, allow him to stoke the fires, sift the debris, and assay on!  Good stuff is about to catch his eye and become that which he notices with great delight!

Lessons from the Glass House

³The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, 

but the Lord tries the hearts.

(Proverbs 17:3 The Amplified Bible)

On my journeys in Virginia, we went to an old-fashioned glass blower's house.  We learned that the fires of the furnace had to be stoked for a period of not less than two weeks in order to get the necessary heat to actually produce the highest quality of glass.  Two weeks of stoking a fire seemed like a lot to me - think about it - two weeks of standing around, just waiting to be able to "get on" with the thing you really know you enjoy doing.  Isn't that how we often think about the times of the "stoking" of the fires of our heart?  We want to move on to the next thing that we actually enjoy about our walk with God and he wants us to have the fires stoked a little hotter so that the thing produced will actually be of the highest quality!

The crucible is only at its best when it is at its hottest point.  In order to get the fires that hot, they have to be stoked quite frequently.  That means constant oversight and care.  More "fuel" must be added to the fires to keep them burning, coals must be turned over and over until they glow red-hot, re-infusing the embers with fresh oxygenation.  As the glass-blower worked with that "blob" of glass he removed from the furnace, it had no real form, but it was very pliable and as a result, it had potential to be something it was not presently.

I think that is the purpose of the furnace (crucible) in our lives - it brings us to the place of being something we are not presently.  As the glass-blower worked with that unformed glass, he went through many iterations of forming, reheating, reforming, and reheating that glass.  And guess what, the final process was the heat of the kiln!  Even once formed into what he wanted it to be, it needed one more "heating" in order to "cure it" to be useful in the hands of the one who would put that vessel to use.  I think we often find ourselves thinking we are finally what God desired for us to be, then find ourselves in the "kiln" of his "curing process" and wonder why.  It is probably because without the final step, we might not fulfill his intention!

The glass, in its original form, is a mixture of various products (sand, potash, lime, etc).  The glass, in its final form, no longer resembles the "ingredients" of the process - but what is produced is a thing of beauty.  The individual ingredients are necessary - life provides these for us.  God is the one who knows the EXACT mixture of ingredients that will produce the vessel he desires.  Without the furnace, the ingredients are nothing more than a mixture of parts.  It is the furnace that actually "melds" the parts into the thing we will eventually behold as a beautiful, functional vessel.

Don't know what the "ingredients" are that God is mixing together in your life, but they are indeed important to his finished image of you!  The furnace is also part of that process.  We might want to consider the value of the process of the furnace - though it is quite uncomfortable, it produces a thing of beauty and functionality that is never apparent in the "ingredients" of our lives when they are all viewed individually.  It is the furnace that "melds" us into the thing God desires.