Isaiah 48:10 “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” Today's episode reminds us that God can use the pain and suffering we go through to refine us. It is not fun, but we become a stronger person for having gone through it. Music:"Adding the Sun"fine us. It is not fun, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Furnace Of Affliction
Isaiah 48:10 “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”
This is a verse that most of us probably don’t like. No one wants to be tested in the furnace of affliction. No one wants to face affliction at all, and yet this is where we grow the most. Do we need to have affliction and trouble in our lives to grow? No, God could just give us all that we need without affliction. God can do whatever He wants. However, He knows if He gives it to us, then we won’t appreciate it; we will take it for granted, and we will waste it.
This is true with most things. If we are handed everything we ever need and want from our parents, then we won’t appreciate what we have, and we probably won’t appreciate all they do for us. We will take it for granted because we don’t know anything else. How do I know that God knows this? First, He knows everything. Second, He has seen it in his people time and time again. Remember the Israelites that were saved from Egypt? God saved them in a miraculous way from the years of slavery that they had endured. He saved them, and then he provided food for them every single day. However, because it happened every single day, they started to take it for granted. They decided they would rather be in captivity and have more variety in food than continue to be free and eat this miraculous bread from heaven.
Can you think of a time in your life when you didn’t have to work for something, and you took it for granted? What about the opposite? You had to work really hard for something, and you appreciated it so much more. Another example that just came to mind was water. In America, everyone I know has more water than they know what to do with. Some pay for water, and some have a well. Either way, they don’t work super hard for their water. Because of this, I have seen a lot of waste when it comes to water, especially in my family. We don’t understand the value of water because we have never gone without water. It has always been right at our fingertips. We currently don’t pay for water either because we have a well. I have seen my kids turn the water on to heat up and then not get in it for 10 minutes or more. Can you imagine how much water we are wasting, just letting it run down the drain?
I know we are not the only people to do this, either. What about all the water bottles we start to do but then don’t finish? I can just imagine what the people in Africa would say or think if they could see all the ways we waste water in America. Globally, more than 1 million people die each year from a lack of access to safe water and sanitation. Unsafe water is a leading risk factor for infectious diseases, including Cholera, Diarrhea, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, and Polio. I find it so hard to understand how there can still be this many people without safe water around the world. I think it can be so easy to think that everyone has the things that you have because you have always had them. You have never known anything different.
I think if we lost power in our houses for a week, or if we lost water for a week, we would have a new appreciation for these things. If we had to grow our own fruits and vegetables instead of just buying them at the store, then we might appreciate them a bit more and not waste them. How many of us buy fresh vegetables with every intention of eating them and then wind up throwing them away because they went bad before we could eat them? I think if we had to do without them for a while, or if they were harder to get, we might appreciate them more.
The same is true with the afflictions we encounter in our lives. Affliction means any pain or suffering we have had to endure. Today’s verse tells us that we are refined through the furnace of these afflictions. We all want to be refined. We want to grow closer to the Lord. We want to grow more into who the Lord is calling us to be, and yet we don’t want the afflictions. Who wants to endure pain and suffering? Who wants to be in a furnace? Can’t we just be refined without all that? Yes, but this is how God has chosen to refine us. This is for our own good.
I was just listening to a sermon by Steven Furtick from Elevation Church the other night while driving home. He said that there was a false article written about their church a few years ago saying that they fake Baptisms. He was not happy about the article, and it was a really stressful time for him and the church. However, now that they are through it, He said he is glad it was written. The reason he said this is because the church was refined through this adversity. When the article was written, they were doing Baptisms at their church once or twice a year. Since that article was written, they now do Baptisms every single week. Was the affliction they had to go through fun? No! But they did grow from it, and God brought a blessing from their church out of it.
Think back to some of the hardest times in your life. Are you different now because of them? Are you stronger in some way? Can you see how God used that affliction to refine you? God most likely didn’t cause the affliction, yet He allowed you to go through it because He knew He could use it to refine you. He knew He could use it to make you a better person, a better parent, spouse, partner, son, daughter, sibling or wherever else He wanted you to grow.
I know adversity and affliction is hard. I know it is not something we look forward to. However, I wonder how differently we would handle affliction if we were able to shift our mindset about it? I wonder how different of an experience it would be if we went into curious and even excited about how God was going to use this to help us grow. If we were able to keep our eyes on Jesus while in the middle of the pain and the suffering and try to find where He is using it to help refine us. Things tend to be easier if we can find meaning in them. Maybe that meaning isn’t coming from the situation, but how God is using the situation to refine us make us better?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening today. Lord, help us see how you are using our painful situations to refine us. Help us to look at our situation with new eyes. Help us to be curious and excited, not for the pain and suffering but for the new growth in us that came because of this suffering. Lord, help us to remember we are never alone, and you are always right there with us as we go through any adversity. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Mentoring for the new year starts one week from tomorrow. The theme for January is Identity, and you won’t want to miss it. I pray it will change how you see yourself. I pray you will understand who you are as a child of God. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in June 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My children, I am with you always. Come to me. Do not be afraid. I am always with you.”