Sirach 2:4-6 “Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you be patient. For gold is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.” Do you have areas in your life where it feels like you are being tested by the fire? You are not alone. God is with you. He is there watching you and ready to take you out at the perfect time. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Gold Is Tested In The Fire
Sirach 2:4-6 “Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you be patient. For gold is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.”
Accept whatever is brought upon you, that’s easier said than done. Sometimes I wish when it said hard things like this, it gave exact directions on how to do it. Wouldn’t that be so much easier? Or, even better, if you could ask God specifically how the Word applies to your situation? For instance, how do you accept everything that is brought upon you when the thing that is brought upon you is the unimaginable? What if you lose your child, or your spouse? How are you supposed to accept that? Where is the how part of this verse? What if you are like Job and you not only loose all your sons and daughters, but all your farm animals, your servants who were with those animals and then your possessions and your health. How is one to accept so much loss?
Then the verse goes on to say, you should be patient when you experience changes that humble you. If something is humbling you, it is probably difficult. Have you tried to be patient when you are learning something new? It’s not that easy. Its frustrating! One of our sons is learning to drive. That is a very humbling experience because when you are a teenager you think you know everything. Then you get behind a wheel and you realize there is so much you don’t know. Being patient while learning to drive is difficult. Being patient while trying to teach someone to drive is difficult as well. Teaching your child to drive is also a change that humbles you. I know how to drive, I have been doing it for over 25 years now. However, when it comes time to teach my son I forget to say certain things because I do them without even thinking after all these years. It is humbling for both of us and although I am mostly patient while doing it, I am not sure how I am able to be patient. This is another place where instructions would be great.
I really like the analogy in the next line. “For gold is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.” I love the image of gold being tested in the fire. I am not sure if you have ever heard the story of the refiners fire before, but I just love the story so I am going to share it with you. In this story they are talking about silver, but it is a similar process for refining gold as well. Here is the story:
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: ‘He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ (Malachi 3:3) She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, ‘How do you know when the silver is fully refined?’ He smiled at her and answered, ‘Oh, that’s easy — when I see my image in it.’
My favorite part of this story is the last line, “Oh, that’s easy-when I see my image in it.” God is our refiner. He is watching us the entire time we are in the fire. He doesn’t leave us in that fire a second longer than He has to in order to get all of our impurities out. God is not just sitting around on the sidelines talking to others while we are in the fire. He is right there keeping his eyes on us the entire time. Today’s verse says just as the gold is being tested in this fire, so is an acceptable man being tested in the furnace of humiliation. God isn’t going to let us get humiliated more than we can handle. He will not leave us in that humiliation a minute longer than we need to be. He is our loving father and He is trying to help us become all we are meant to become. Once He looks at us and see’s His reflection shining back at Him, He knows we are ready.
The ending of this verse says, “Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.” Actually, maybe this is the how part of the verse. How do we accept the unthinkable thing that happened to us? We trust in Him. I was just talking to a friend today about this very thing. We both prayed for our friend to be healed. We both really believed she would be, and she wasn’t. Well, I guess technically she was because their is not disease or illness in heaven. However, she was not healed here on earth. We were questioning this today while thinking back on it. We were talking about how we didn’t understand because Jesus said whatever you ask for in my name if you believe, I will grant you. Well, we asked, we believed, and it didn’t happen. We both agreed the only way to accept it is to accept that God’s will is sovereign. His ways are higher than our ways and His thought higher than our thoughts. We trust Him and if she wasn’t saved we trust He had his reasons.
The verse says to trust in him and he will help you, I have seen this time and time again. I have trusted Him a lot over the years and He has helped me a lot over the years. I know trusting is hard, especially if you have been hurt in the past. Trusting God isn’t like trusting anyone else. It is safe to put your trust in God because He doesn’t let us down. If you trust in Him He will come through for you. He loves to come when unexpected and just knock your socks off, He is that good of a daddy! Next it says, make your ways straight and hope in him. Hope is another thing that can be tough. We have all hoped in something before and been let down. Hoping in the Lord is different. It is safe to hope in Him because He is not going to promise you something He can’t deliver on. He is the God of the impossible and He is a WayMaker. He makes a way where there is no way. If you hope in Him He will come through. He is amazing like that! We started this episode by talking about how we wish we knew how to accept whatever is brought upon you and how to be patient when a change humbles you. I think the answer to both of these is to trust God and He will help you.
I think sometimes we don’t understand the power God brings when He comes to help you. We read God will help us and we wonder what He is going to do about your broken leg or how is he going to help me quit smoking. God can literally heal your leg in a moment. I have been reading so many healing stories and you wouldn’t believe all the amazing things God has done. Also, we dismiss God from miracles like smoking or vaping. I prayed that my son, who was under 18 at the time would stop smoking. The next time I talked to him, he said it was so weird because every time he would smoke a cigarette it made him sick. He said it was all of the sudden. He used to be fine but now cigarettes grossed him out. That was totally God doing that. I asked to heal him of this addiction and He did. God is so good. He is much more powerful than we give Him credit for. If you are finding acceptance of your circumstances difficult, turn to God, ask Him for help. Trust in Him and He will help you!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we are so happy you love us. Lord, we ask for you to help us understand what you are saying in today’s verses. Help us to really take it in and apply it in our lives. Lord, help us to accept those things that are brought upon us. Help us to understand you are refining us in the fire of your love. You have your watchful eye on us and will take us out at the perfect moment. Help us be patient enough to wait for you Lord. Help us to put our hope and trust in you. We love you so much Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Remember Jesus love you and so do I! Have a blessed day!