Though living a more Godly life, still he was not prospering materially. In fact, it seems that from the time of his conversion more trouble, affliction and loss were sustained than ever before. Everything seemed to be going wrong.
One day a friend who was not a Christian stopped by to talk to him awhile. Sympathizing with him in some of his trials, the friend said
"It seems strange to me that so much affliction should pass over you just at the time when you have become an earnest Christian. Of course, I don't want to weaken your faith in God or anything like that. But here you are, with God's help and guidance, and yet things seem to be getting steadily worse. I can't help wondering why that is."
The blacksmith did not answer immediately, and it was evident that he had thought the same question before. But finally, he said,
"You see here the raw iron which I have to make into horse's shoes. You know what I do with it? I take a piece and heat it in the fire until it is red, almost white with the heat. Then I hammer it unmercifully to shape it as I know it should be shaped. Then I plunge it into a pail of cold water to temper it. Then I heat it again and hammer it some more. And this I do until it is finished."
"But sometimes I find a piece of iron that won't stand up under this treatment. The heat and the hammering and the cold water are too much for it. I don't know why it fails in the process, but I know it will never make a good horse's shoe."
He pointed to a heap of scrap iron that was near the door of his shop.
"When I get a piece that cannot take the shape and temper, I throw it out on the scrap heap. It will never be good for anything."
He went on,
"I know that God has been holding me in the fires of affliction and I have felt His hammer upon me. But I don't mind, if only He can bring me to what I should be. And so, in all these hard things my prayer is simply this:
Try me in any way you wish, Lord, only don't throw me on the scrap heap."
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The Refiner's Fire
“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.” - Zechariah 13:9 (KJV)
The process of refining metals is used in the Bible as a metaphor of spiritual purification. In a sense, if you have something made of pure gold or pure silver, it is made of the leftovers. Refining is a process by which everything else is removed and only the pure metal remains. It is accomplished through firing, putting the metal over the fire until it is a liquid from which can be drawn all the dross.
Our lives are not pure gold by any means. God's desire is that we be holy as He is holy. That means there are things that need to be removed from our lives.
It also means that He will assist in that process!
God's intent is not to destroy us but to purify us. Sometimes His method is akin to the intense heat of the refiner's fire. Our response to the process is crucial. We can either allow Him to work in our lives, cooperating in removing that which is impure, or we can resist or rebel.
To His people, God sent the message through the prophet Zechariah that He would "refine them like silver and test them like gold" (13:9). That is painful, but look at the promise: "They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The LORD is our God.'" The blessing will be ours.
Don't resist or rebel against God's refining fire. Learn from the tough times. Look for the ways in which God is using your difficulties to refine you.
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