God says that during this season, He is turning up the heat, finding the gold, and bringing His refining fire.
Job makes a powerful statement of faith as he says of the Lord, "when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold." God knew Job's heart and Job knew the heart of God. Proverbs 17:3 reminds us that the crucible is for silver, the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts.
I have a pair of gold earrings. They are beautiful and lightweight, and because of this, I wear them quite a bit. The challenge is that I have lost one of the earrings three times.
The first time I was in a restaurant with one of my intercessors. It was in the middle of the mask mandates, and I figured the earring fell off as I was removing my mask as we sat down at our table. So, with our eyes focused on the ground, we searched to no avail. Giving up on the natural eyes, we went for a walk around the building and prayed. As we walked back past the restaurant's front door, the earring was lying right in front of the door, on the concrete, in a space we had already carefully searched. We had to switch our focus and adjust our eyesight to find the earring.
The second time I knew I had lost the earring at home but had no idea when or where in the house. After a careful search, it was still missing in action. I prayed. A week later, as I was loading clothing in the washing machine, the missing earring was lying in the bottom of the laundry basket. In the natural, there was no reason that it should have been at this location.
The third time, I was sure I lost it at church. I called the church, and they searched without success. Again, praying to the Lord, I went through my week. A week later, I was in the middle of making pizza. I had preheated the oven to four hundred degrees and opened the door. I heard something drop. What was lying in the bottom of my 400-degree oven? You guessed it, the beautiful, lightweight gold earring that had been missing all week.
Of course, the following action was to pull the racks, grab some tongs and rescue the earring from the oven.
We must understand God will meet us in numerous ways in the seasons of our lives. When you lose something three times, and each time it is a bit more dramatic with the return, it is time to ask God some questions. Why? Because He may have something to teach you about His nature.
We live in a season where a lot of refining is going on. The refining process is not easy, and fire is painful. However, this process is necessary if we want to get where God has called us to go.
As I listened for the Word of the Lord, I sensed the following:
· Ears are being spiritually tuned to be able to hear things drop out of the spiritual realm.
· When we hear the "sound of Heaven," we must look with intentionality so that we do not miss the moment.
· There are things we have given up hope on that God is restoring this season.
When we read about the refiner's fire in Malachi 3, we discover that it is from this place of refining that we bring "offerings of righteousness" to the Lord. These offerings are pleasing as everything not of the Lord has been burned away.
I hear the Lord saying, "There is much that you don't understand. However, know that the fire does not consume me, but I am the consuming fire. Listen for the sound in the spiritual, intentionally look for my movement, and partner with it. I am the one that strengthens you, heals you, and sets you free. You come out smelling like me when you walk through my fire."
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