Refined like gold

Chicago was such a season of growth. I remember about a month into my time there I told someone that I didn't feel very close with the Lord because I didn't feel the same desperate need for him there that I had felt being in grad school. Well that quickly changed and suddenly I found myself at a very broken spot but it was so beautiful because it was so growth filled. One thing I think is so cool about God is that when he tries to teach us something he does it through multiple different avenues. For example, he will put a simple thought on your heart, then you'll read about the same thing in scripture, then you'll hear something similiar from a friend, and then it'll be stated at a church service. I had this happen to me during my time in Chicago this summer.

God has been teaching me how much he uses times of suffering to refine us. The thing that is so amazing about suffering is that it is a divine instrument used by God to shape us and mold us. Often I get upset going through times of trial and I wonder why they happen but then I realize that when I ask God everyday to shape me, mold me, transform me, and make me more Holy then He is going to do that because our God answers prayers. When I look back at these times it's hard for me to not think "well maybe I should stop praying to be more like Jesus because when I do things fall apart." But then I realize that the way that He is choosing to answer those prayers is by changing me to be more like him through pain and brokenness. We go through trials because God knows we need to. We go through them for our own growth and maturing.

At a church service I went to in Chicago the pastor talked about how a goldsmith says that gold is not ready to come out from the fire until he can see his own image in the gold. That's what it's like for us in our relationship with the Lord. We're not a finished product until He can look at us and see himself. I don't know about ya'll but I'm for sure not there yet! It really comes down to if we want to be made in the image of Christ. If we do then we accept suffering as a gift from God and we run to him every step of the way. So let's keep praying that we can keep being thrown in the fire and becoming more purified through the refining process. I want the character of Jesus to be constantly reflected in me. I want to be complete in God's glory alone.


2 Cor 4:8-11 "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body."