Burnt

Thursday, August 01, 2013 Posted by Sara

^{I live in a frying pan. The little town I call home here in California is in a flat valley surrounded by mountains. And although we are used to the mild weather Northern California affords us throughout most of the year, during the summer - it's always a scorcher. We typically hit the 115 degrees or higher throughout.

In my life right now, it feels less like slow simmering of my faith, and more like a broiling of my spirit - sometimes the Father uses a little refiners fire to purify and increase our faith. Can I get an amen?

Refining is rarely a pleasant or pain free process. When God shows you areas of growth, brings you honest rebuke, and holds a mirror for you to see yourself accurately-it's never for the purpose of beating you down. (I have to repeat this to myself sometimes). He really is on a mission to shape and form you into the fullness of the beautiful creation He made you to be. These things are revealed, because the Refiner is about to transform them - if you let Him.

^"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the priests, the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness." Malachi 3:3

We are a royal priesthood, and God's heart is to use the harder moments and seasons when the fire is turned up to refine us, so what we have to offer Him and what we have to offer others is the best - valuable, beautiful, raw. Gold.
Whatever the temperature of your faith right now, if you're feeling a little burnt too, rest assured, fall is just around the corner - and the cooling sets in place all the Father accomplished in the fire.}