A painful process...

Daily I am being refined... like when I rolled through that stop sign two nights ago and I got the $127.00 ticket... yep, refined... The officer asked me if I knew what I was being pulled over for and I said “no” and he said it was “because I didn’t come to a complete stop” and I said, “Who me?” Indicating a sense of innocence in order to try and get out of the ticket and get a warning... EVEN when I knew exactly why I got pulled over...

That’s right... I failed.... Miserably. I hate when I screw up like this... and we all do it from time to time. I think it is part of this process we call refinement. But I think there has to be a willingness to be refined on our part. A willingness to admit that we are not perfect and a willingness to admit when we have screwed up. A willingness to ask for forgiveness. Refinement is a constant changing from who we are to who we will become: An image of our creator. Recently, it was brought to my attention that the refinement process occurs when the refiner applies heat to a precious metal in order to purify it. When this occurs, the impurities rise to the top and he gently skims them off. How does he know when he has pure gold or pure silver? When he can see his reflection...

This is us.

Daily being refined through the trials He puts in our lives everyday. But we can choose to acknowledge that we have impurities or we can chose ignore them. It's hard to be humble... but when we fail, we need to allow the One True Refiner to remove the impurities from us.

Are you willing to be tempered by the flames... seeking to become pure? I believe this is a process... and I don’t believe I will ever become completely pure except through Christ’s death on the cross. But I truly hope that, from one day to the next, His reflection keeps improving.

In the meantime, I am paying $127.00.

Refinement hurts.