Burn me beatiful.
Burn me lovely.
Burn me righteous.
Burn me holy.
In 2020, I went through a low time and found myself struggling in several areas of my life. As pressures mounted, I did what I am prone to do. I began to focus on how to change my circumstances. My brain began to be filled with ideas, plans and schemes designed to get me to a more comfortable place. And, as usually happens when I try to manipulate my circumstances, I just got more frustrated and less content.
1st Peter 1:7 says, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It 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 Christ Jesus is revealed to the whole world.”
Sometimes we expect God to simply zap the junk out of our lives when we enter into relationship with Him. But that is not the refining process -- not for gold, and not for us. God loves us too much to leave us as we are because our impure selves cannot reflect clearly all of who he is, and our fullest joy is realized in the growing brilliance of our reflection of him in our lives. The refining process is hot. To refine gold, heat must be applied to force the impurities to the surface. As the impurities rise, they are removed and more heat is applied. This process continues and continues, heat is applied and re-applied, until the gold is pure. The refiner knows the gold is pure when he looks into the gold and sees his clear reflection.
God works a similar process in us. Our lives are a process of God applying heat and exposing our weaknesses, our faults, our struggles, and our impurities. Heat is hot and uncomfortable, but if we submit to the heat, we are day by day transformed into His likeness. The process ends when we meet Jesus face to face, and he looks into our faces and sees his clear reflection.
So often we seek to place blame on someone or something for the difficult issues in our lives. But things we attribute to evil may well be heat applied by the refiner of our souls -- heat full of purpose and heat that ultimately will result in purity and joy. Illness may be designed to bring fear to the surface so God can build trust. Financial difficulty may raise materialism to the surface. Loneliness may raise idolatry to the surface. Relational struggles may raise bitterness or unforgiveness to the surface. Disappointment at work may raise pride to the surface. The heat and trials of our lives are not evidence God is cruel or has left you, but ultimately are evidence of how much God values you and his desire for you to be all he designed you to be. He values us as he finds us but he loves us too much to leave us as he finds us.
When life gets hot and difficult, human tendency is to run from the heat. When a molten substance is removed from the heat, it hardens. When we run from the heat, our lives and hearts harden, our impurities set and we simply stagnate. God tells us in Hebrews 12 it will seem difficult for the moment, but it always yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. If most of us were honest, we would trade much in our life for a sense of true peace. Peace does not primarily mean we have peaceful circumstances. Peace is realizing God is in control of all of the pieces of our lives, and even the difficult pieces have an important place in the bigger picture of God's plan for us. It is in peace we find rest. There is joy -- and peace -- and rest -- in the refining process.
As God changes your perspective, you will begin to see less of what is wrong and more of what evidences God's refining work in your life -- God bringing weaknesses to the surface so you ultimately will be stronger, more like him and more reflective of him. God's plan is not to make you more independent or more self-sufficient. His plan is to make you holy and dependent servants of the refiner who desires to give us lives far beyond what we ever could imagine. In the heat, we see his power displayed and we become vessels for his glory and reflectors of his image to the world -- and that is a life worth living, no matter your circumstances!
So what are you trusting God to refine you through in 2021? Whatever it is I pray that you would remember that it takes time and that you lean and trust Him along the way. He is for you, full and always. He has not forgotten about what you long for, he is simply burning away everything that is not like him.
God,
Thank you for every trial and test that 2020 brought. Thank you for making it hard. Thank you for taking away the things that you took way and exchanging them for a life and identity that is fully connected to you. I know that we absolutely hate the unknown, we want to be in control of our lives, and we want to be certain of what you are doing. God help us to head into 2021 with a heart that is longing to be aligned with yours. That we would remember that even in the refinement that your end product is better than ours. Thank you for burning the beautiful things into us.
Signed,
Becoming Refined
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