Pure Gold

I sat there in my car, the skies were cloudy and gray, it seemed to match my mood. The day finally came to an end, but not without a battle.

I was defeated. Dozens of papers all scrunched up in my bag of a failed lesson I attempted to teach.

I just don’t understand what you’re trying to do through me, God? Why am I going through this, I just don’t see what can come from this.

I know that everyone faces trials here on earth. We’re humans, I get it. But why this one, why me? I just didn’t understand what God was trying to teach me. Where was the underlying lesson of this season?

There are many seasons in life. Just like there is the fall and then winter and spring… then finally the long anticipated summer.

But before the beautiful warmth and the sunshine that comes with the summer, we usually have to go through a brittle winter and those nasty spring allergies.

I can’t help but think, God must have rooted a lesson in here somewhere. Before beauty… pain. Before fully appreciating the light… we have to experience the darkness.

Much like the process of refining gold. Before it is molded into jewelry, it must be refined and melted. Borax and soda ash are added to separate the precious pure gold from the other metals so that it comes out pure.

// But he knows the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. // Job 23:10

I suppose just like the gold, we go through various trials too so that we could be refined.

That though this season in time is not exactly my favorite, every situation is changing me and molding me.

That thought makes me start to see it in a different perspective. How is God using this trial to refine me?

It isn’t about what we go through, but rather how we come out of it. It’s a purifying process. No doubt about it, bad times will come and go. But how we respond changes everything.

In the hardest of times, we need to keep going. We need to remember that this whole season isn’t in vain. We are being purified and molded every step of the way.

So that all of the stubborn, messy parts of us are being stripped away… and the pure gold is left. The gold that God knows we have somewhere in that tangled mess of our hearts.

He’s making us more like Him.

So chin up. Keep trudging forward. This part is only for a little while… but the beauty that will come from it is eternal.

// That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ// 1 Peter 1:7