The process used by metal smith’s to refine gold involves heating the metal until it is molten, resembling liquid mercury, though blazing white hot. A pinch of borax is added to the now liquid gold and small patches of a different texture and molten color rise to the surface of the metal. They appear to be darker, swirling, and spinning rapidly as the impurities, or dross, are burned off in the extreme heat, leaving a pure and mailable metal.
During the heating process it is imperative to keep the heat directed on the metal; it becomes liquid at a high temperature, but even the slightest shifting of the flame or heat source used to melt the gold can cause it to “cool” from white hot with rolling dross burning off, instantly dropping to a cooler red hot – not quite hot enough to burn off the dross.
It was always amazing to me to witness this process when I was metal smithing and needed the silver or gold to be white hot – hot enough to use in the centrifuge for the lost wax method of casting. If I looked away for just a second, the torch flame I was holding with laser focus on the now molten metal would drift off the metal, and in that second the temperature would drop to red hot, making it risky to cast; the metal may have become too cool in that instant and unable to flow as a liquid – necessary for the casting process.
Sometimes we feel the heat is too intense in God’s refining process; we want Him to back off or we want to jump out of the process. Change isn’t easy and we often try to hold onto the old that we know. God knows what we really need. He is refining us for the better; to reflect Him, become more like Him. He wants to take out the junk and allow us to shine for Him. There are times that if He takes the heat off, we don’t get rid of the dross.
In the Refiner’s fire we often experience the uncomfortable heat required to bring the dross or impurities to the surface to be burned off. Likewise, He searches our hearts and knows what and when to bring to the surface and burn off as dross. As we are willing to go through the sometimes painful process – we are in His heart surgery and as we choose to stay put, not getting off the table before He is done, we experience a new freedom.
His healing of what was broken but we offered to Him in surrender, an attitude that unknowingly crippled us is changed. With every surrender and heart surgery, performed at His gentle hand, we lose the “junk” and become more like Him, reflecting Him more and more. The dross that has clogged our way is burned off and pure gold remains.
Hold tight to Him in the midst of this process, offering your heart to Him in surrender as He brings you through each crescendo of the refining process. He delights in you and the surrendered heart you offer Him. He is able to burn away the grime from our lives, removing the lies and untruths at the root of the hurt and wounding we may have carried that were never from Him.
His heart is for you to burn brightly, with the clarity and beauty He has created you to walk in. With every dross-tinged flame you allow Him to refine, trusting Him to heal what was broken, you shine forth with more of Him. He stirs your heart with every touch of His hand in your life, every loving caress as He draws His hand across your brow. He calls and you respond.
He heals more of the hurt you have carried and as He does, He ignites more flames of passion for Him. You see more and more of who you have been uniquely created to reflect, with beauty and clarity, the heart of the Father. You dance before Him, celebrating who He is and He delights with His whole heart in seeing you continue to blossom after the fire has burned away the dross. You blossom as new growth that emerges fresh and green after scorching fires have left the landscape laying deep in nothing but ashes in their wake. Let that new growth emerge with every refining and blossom into the unique expression you are of His fullness through you. Arise and shine for Him!
Trust Him as He moves you through the symphony of life with Him. The Father indicated the term “crescendo” is important in this process. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “crescendo” as “a gradual increase as in a crescendo if excitement; specifically: a gradual increase in volume of a musical passage” and “the peak of a gradual increase; climax.”
This symphony of life with Him involves several parallel processes of crescendo happening simultaneously: Though your life may seem like a series of threatening crescendos where fears or worry, the hurts and haunts of past words spoken over you start quietly and build to what seems like an ear splitting crescendo, leaving you focused on the lies the enemy wants you to believes don’t crippling the expression of who you are in Him.
Father has a different plan. His crescendos bring truth, beauty and freedom. Take His hand and allow Him to walk with you through healing crescendos, full of His love and grace. He is gentle with you and longs to build in you places of safety and truth, bringing you freedom from the tyranny of fear, past condemnation and worry.
He is with you in every flame that burns away the dross and leaves behind the beauty of His truth in you. The flames cleanse and bring forth a sparkling clear reality of who you are and who this unfailing Father is for you.
Trust Him to heal the old and bring the new. That process can start and build in intensity until it peaks and releases the sweet fragrance of freedom and truth. Allow Him to set you free. Wave after wave of truth come and bring deep healing, resulting in the magnificent symphony of you and Papa together.
In freedom, you dance with Him and before Him. It is true joy and immeasurable delight that fuels your heart and thus your dance. Your heart is light and your eyes are on this One who designed you and loves you.
Your life becomes an ongoing crescendo with Him- building in the delight and freedom of who you are in Him. You can’t help but express your ever deepening love for Him in all that you are and all you touch.
Dance openly and exuberantly with Him, celebrating your new found truths as reality and delighting in this One who set you free!
Malachi 3:3 (NLT) He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the LORD.
“When he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.” Job 23:10