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The Refining Fire of Life

Started by Roscoe, December 14, 2011, 01:56:24 AM

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Roscoe

  I figured I'd post this up....maybe someone other than me needs to reflect on this.

The Refining Fire of life

Job 23:8-10
8 Behold, I go forward, but he [is] not [there]; and backward, but I cannot perceive him:
9 On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold [him]: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see [him]:
10 But he knoweth the way that I take: [when] he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

In this passage, I want you to look at what is written here. The writer looked for God, but couldn't see Him in his situation.  But look at verse 9- "On the left hand, where he doth work"... God is working in your situation the entire time, even when we don't see Him. I am reminded of the old "footsteps" poem. God is not leaving us in the trials- rather He is working with us, to produce the person He knows we can be, that He can use.
Psalms 66:10
10 For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
Often times in life, we enter seasons in which we feel that God doesn't hear us, or doesn't care. It is easy to get caught up in our situations and the day to day stresses of life and feel that God has left us alone.  Even David, a man that was described as being after God's own heart, felt this way. In Psalms 22:1, David states,       "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? [why art thou so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent".
It's easy for us to look at someone else's life and see God working in it, yet never see what He is doing in our situation.
  It is human nature to want our lives to be perfect and untroubled but we lose sight of what it takes to get a life like that.
  If you look at a pane of glass in your house, it is clear and easy to see through. Something we take for granted every day of our lives, unless it's broken and cold outside. But the glass did not originate in that condition. While there are several manners in which glass is formed, there is one thing in common. The raw material all went through an intense heat.
Likewise, our lives are refined by the day to day heat of the trials of life. If not for the heat the glass would still be a pile of raw materials, or sand if you will, of little use to anyone. But  after the heat and the trials, look at what all glass is used for. There's no doubt that without glass our lives would be vastly affected for the worse. Imagine driving to work this morning without the glass windsheild in your vehicle. Imagine not having a glass to drink out of.
   Practically everything in life that is used is subject to intense heat and/or pressure. Plastic- molded into the desired shapes. When I worked at Virco, a furniture manufacturing facility, I sometimes worked on the soft plastics line. They would make plastic chairs. The material came in as 55 gallon drums of colored plastic beads. It was poured into a machine that exerted pressure and extreme heat to melt the material and form it in the shape of the mold. I know it was extreme heat, because I had the job of taking the finished seat from the machine and trimming off excess material to make it fit standards. The machine used the heat to melt the raw materials and poured the liquified material into the mold. The machine then pressed the mold firmly against the material, producing the desired shape.
  If we look at our lives in comparsion to this process, think of God as the mold, or the desired shape. Our lives are the raw material waiting to be formed into a useful vessel. The trials of life are the machine. As our lives are heated and pressurized, if we are where we should be with God, we will be pressed closer to God- where we should be. And at the end of the trial, we are made in His image.
Don't want to be glass or plastic? Okay, try paper. Nope- that requires for the pulp to be pressed under huge rollers and otherwise refined to make usable.
Diamond- a chunk of carbon until submitted to extreme pressures and conditions.
Why should we be any different from anything else on the planet? If we are to have a useful life, we are going to be subjected to pressures. Job 14: 1 says "Man [that is] born of a woman [is] of few days, and full of trouble."  There's no escaping the troubles of life. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are, how poor you are, how holy you are, you are going to face trouble and trials. Matthew 5 :45 is plain about this- "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
    The person that is insanely wealthy has just as many, if not more problems than you and I.  If you look up to someone in the church- just remember, they did not get to be where they are with God without going through the fire. There are people in my life that I look up to, and go to for advice when I feel like God has forgotten me. When I first began feeling a call to preach, I looked at my life- then I looked at theirs. I felt like I could never live up to their example, I could never measure up to the life that they presented.
Then I realized- they couldn't either. Not all at once. They got to the postition that they are with God by going through trial after trial, refinement after refinement. They stayed faithful, and God brought them to a new level of faith and trust in Him.
In my life, I've noticed this. I enter a trial thinking, "God, how am I going to get through this? How am I going to make it?" But when the trial is behind me- my life is always better for it, and I have a new, stronger faith in God. As long as I stay true to Him, and don't try to get out of the trial through my own methods, God will bring me through it in better shape than when it started, and stronger than ever.
When I went to the police academy, I was not the most fit. I was not way out of shape, but I wasn't in great shape either. They wanted me to run a mile in a half in 16 and a half minutes. I did it in 23 minutes. Our first day at the academy, we were required to do sit-ups, push-ups, then run a mile and a half while being timed. After that, every morning for the next eleven weeks, my day began with sit-ups, push-ups, and working out on weight machines or running that mile and a half. There were many times I did not think I could make it through the excersise. But surprisingly, as I went through the training, the push ups and sit ups got easier. The mile and a half got quicker and not as hard on me. And when I graduated, I was in much better shape than I was when I started. I finished the final mile and a half run with around a fifteen minute time.
I went through the trial. And I was made stronger because of it. Because of the trials I go through in life today, I am stronger and better able to face the trials ahead of me. What if I were made to run that mile and a half in 16 minutes the day I began or fail? I'd have failed and went home. But by going through the trial of getting up and running in the mornings, I was made stronger and able to pass the final test.
In the Pattinson process of metal refinement, there are eight to nine "pots" that are placed in a row. The metals to be refined, or seperated, are placed in the center pot and heated to a very high temperature. The metals, for instance copper and lead, are seperated and placed into different pots. The new pots of material are heated, and the process begans again. The copper is heated numerous times before it is purified and deemed useable.
Likewise in life, we will go through trials and will be placed in intense pressure. But if we hang on and trust God then we will be made stronger for it. We will be able to proceed to the next trial of life and refinement, until one day God says      " That's enough. They're refined. They are pure." Then, we will be home. Then, in the words of Paul,"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."  Galatians 6:9
Potstirrer and snoop extraordinaire   "I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world."- Thomas Edison