The Refiner’s Fire

The Refiner’s Fire

I have refined you but not in the way silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering. –Isaiah 48:10

In ancient times, a workman would take a piece of ore hewn from the earth, crush it into pieces, and place it in a piece of pottery that he would then thrust into a fire. The refiner carefully tended the fire, knowing just how intense the flame needed to be to soften the ore and cause the impurities to rise to the top so they could be skimmed off, leaving a bubbling treasure of molten metal. The refiner was patient, knowing just how long the metal should stay in the fire so that more and more dull impurities would rise to the surface until finally he could look into the liquid silver and see what he had been working for and waiting for—his own reflection.

We, too, are being refined in the fiery crucible of suffering and pain. Our Refiner knows just how hot to make the fire so that our impurities will rise to the top to be lifted away. He does the careful work of removing from our lives what is unfit and impure, transforming the ordinary ore of our lives into a shining treasure. The fiery flames of distress and difficulty are much too hot for our liking, but the refiner’s fire is not a cause for fear. It burns for our good. His purpose in plunging you into the fire is not to disfigure you, but to mold you into a person who thinks and acts and looks like Christ. Every sorrow that has singed you has been for the supreme purpose of transforming your character into the likeness of Jesus.

But it is possible to resist God’s refining process. The prophet Jeremiah described what happens when God’s people resist: “The bellows blow fiercely. The refining fire grows hotter. But it will never purify and cleanse them because there is no purity in them to refine. I will label them ‘Rejected Silver’ because I, the LORD, am discarding them” (Jeremiah 6:29-30). Impure, unusable, rejected, discarded. Can you imagine anything worse than being deemed unusable by God because you’ve resisted his refining process? Welcome the work of the Refiner. Allow him to plunge you into the fire so he can form you into his image, making you a shining treasure that reflects his own glorious character.

My careful Refiner, how I resist the fire of suffering and long for relief from the flames. But I want to be useful to you, a beautiful reflection of you, so plunge me into the fire, if you must, to make me into your image.

DIGGING DEEPER