There's been a lot of stress lately - (that's one reason why I'm four days
late with this posting!) What about in your life? One of my friends prayed
with me and in his prayer he mentioned that God intends everything to work
out for some good. That's difficult to grasp sometimes.
I was reading the interview with Rick Warren by Paul Bradshaw. (Warren wrote
that well-read book,The Purpose Driven Life.) In the interview Rick said
that life is a series of problems. Either you are in one now, you're just
coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. That's
also difficult to hear!
By the way, Warren's wife, Kay, has now been diagosed with cancer, so his words
bear weight for us. He said that he used to think of life as a series of hills
and valleys, but now he thinks of it more like two rails on a railroad track.
At all times you have something good and something bad in your life. And things
come to us as challenges for us to grow. "God is more interested in our character
than in our comfort; more interested in making our lives holy than making them
happy."
I heard the The Refiner story a long time ago but someone sent it to me a few
weeks ago. It fits right in and I'll tell it as it was sent to me.
A woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She
didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity
about the process of refining silver.
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let
it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver
in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest so as to burn away all
the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought
about the verse that says, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."
(The prophet Malachi wrote this a long time ago.) She asked the silversmith if
it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the
silver was being refined.
The man answered yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he
had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the
silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you
know when the silver is fully refined?"
He smiled and answered, "Oh, that's easy - when I see my image in it."
If today you're feeling the heat of the fire, remember God is holding you, He
has his eye on you, and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.
Be encouraged!
Angie
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