Refined By Fire

 Job 23:10
But He knoweth the way that I take; when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. 

The separation of gold from ore requires many layers of processing and refining to get to 99% pure gold. Refining by fire is the initial step that is taken to remove the impurity from the ore that is mined. This is the analogy that Job uses to demonstrate that God is in the process of refining him. Job, a man of means, was totally wiped out of his material wealth and his possessions. His family was also the victim of natural disasters as a tornado came through their town, destroying the home that his sons and daughters lived in. Even his wife, who should have been the one standing next to him, told him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God, and die!” Satan was doing all he could to get Job to give up on trusting God. The human reaction is to say, “If God loved me, all this would not be happening to me.” Where is God when life starts falling apart? Lost everything he owned, family gone, his wife forsaking him, the painful suffering of boils over his whole body, what else could go wrong? Job, a man of integrity, a man with an unshakable faith in God, looked beyond the temporal world into the eternal world of the kingdom of God, and said,” I was born into this world with nothing, and I will leave this world with nothing. The Lord blessed me with wealth, and he has chosen now to take it away.” Job knew in his heart that he was living right before God and that God knew his heart. Life is not fair. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth. We put our trust in the sovereignty of God, who knows what is best. For some, it may mean the refining of the fire, for others it may be going through deep waters. God wants to remove anything that will keep us from fully trusting Him. Sometimes it will require things we love, to bring us to a place where we can be gold in the hands of God. Wholly sanctified, ready to be used by Him, and by Him for whatever He wants to do.