Refined - Finding Joy in the Midst of the FireSample

Life at its finest is a process. It is a process of trials and blessings, of challenges and tests, of pain and delight. Life is a process of the “Why, God?! Why do I have to go through this?” days we all will experience. God is using the process of life to turn you into something more beautiful than you could ever be without the process of life. God uses this process to turn a man or a woman into a productive member of the Kingdom of God. God needs you! His plan is to use you, and He is unable to use you when you stubbornly remain in the beginning stages of the process. God’s process will always refine and define a child who is willing to be turned into someone usable for Christ and His Kingdom. As twenty-first-century Western believers, we have embraced words such as productive, and purpose, and prosperous. However, all three of those “powerful” words are dependent upon God’s “process” in the life of a Christian. Often, the process that God takes one of His children through involves fire. Not one of us enjoys the fire, and all of us may scream and wiggle and complain in order to avoid the fires of life. However, even in the fire, God is refining, defining, and preparing each one of us for purpose in His unshakable Kingdom! There is a way to go through the fire and not even have the residue of smoke rest upon us. There is a way to be in the fire but not of the fire! I must admit, I have experienced a fire or two in my lifetime, and often I have indeed come out smelling like smoke. After spending time in the “furnace of great affliction,” often I come out as a charred remnant of my former self. But that is because when I was in the fire I was determined to have my own way and not God’s way. I have painfully discovered that when you go through any fire in life guided by the principles found only in the Word of God, you will be able to encounter the hottest flames that life has to offer and still not smell like smoke!