When Obedience Leads to Refinement
Author : Kaitlin Haines
Isaiah 43 says, “‘Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up, the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.’”...”No one can snatch you out of my hand.”
I have been walking through a deep valley–post obedience. The valley itself feels like a low point. But it isn’t just the valley that is hard. It’s all of the things that are in the valley as I walk through it. It’s the rainy days where all I feel is dullness and I can’t see the sun. It’s the tall grass with snakes that bite me as I walk. It is the sunburn from the blazing sun and no shade.
Do you ever feel like you’re in a valley so deep that you’re not even going to make it to the foot of the mountain, much less the top?
Metaphorically speaking, the valley is the circumstance. Something has brought you low, discouraged you, or set you back. The cloudy, rainy days are the depressing thoughts that rage through your mind. The tall grass and snakes are the random burdens that make the valley feel 10 times worse. The sun burning your skin is the enemy constantly reminding you that you’ll never make it, that you’ll burn up. That you should just give up.
The truth is, the spiritual walk was never meant to be easy.
We all walk through valleys, rivers, and fires. We were promised suffering in John 16:33 : “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Why suffering?
Ultimately, suffering is a consequence of living in a fallen world. But there are many reasons (more than on this list) that the Lord doesn’t protect us from all suffering :
To remind us of our dependence on Him.
To test our faith in Him.
To allow us to see His character - He is our comfort, our shield, our protection, our sustainer – a God who ultimately is gracious and compassionate to do all of these things.
To bring glory to Him through it.
To refine us.
Suffering often happens in the midst of obedience because life in the Spirit isn’t just a life of joy and freedom, but a life of sharing in Christ’s suffering. (Romans 8)
The Lord has been teaching me all of these through my own circumstances. But He has specifically been showing me that I am going through refinement. That my walk in obedience requires more than who I am at this very moment.
Refinement.
As I was walking yesterday, spending time listening to the Holy Spirit, the Lord revealed so much to me about His refining power. Here, we are quite literally called “The Refined Sisterhood.” We believe strongly that this life is a constant refinement of who we are to be more like Christ.
But he took me deeper. He always does if I lean in close enough.
If I want to look more like Him, be used by Him, and know more of Him, he must refine the parts of me that separate me from Him.
The fire we walk through isn’t always a result of the world around us or without purpose. Sometimes the refiner takes hold of us, in our own brokenness, purifying us as we walk through the testing of our faith.
We see in Job’s life that the Lord allowed so much suffering, grief, and devastating hardship. But even in his suffering, the testing of his faith never led him to sin. He praised God through the hardship and honored the One who gives and takes away (Job 1:21). I often wonder if I have a heart like Job or if I give into the enemy and His temptation to doubt God. I know for a fact that my heart wants to be like Job’s, honoring and glorifying the Lord even in my deepest valleys.
When the fire gets hot…
Malachi 3:2-3 says, “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.”
He is the Refiner.
1 Peter 1:6-7 says, “So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.”
He often tests our faith through fire. But the testing is for a deeper purpose – more than just for Him to see if we really trust Him. Often he doesn’t just want to see our reaction to the testing, he wants to purify us from the things that separate us from Him through crushing and burning that leads to surrender, so we can look like Him.
Obedience cannot be fully carried out without pruning & purifying the desires of the flesh.
He may ask you to do something and you decide you’ll obey because you can picture the end result. But saying yes is just the beginning.
Sometimes the reward of obedience is walking through The Refiner’s fire.
As the Lord was speaking to me about being my Refiner, He led me to the process of gold refinement. Let’s chat about what refinement looks like the the tangible process of refining gold.
The 3 Stages of Gold Refinement
The Crushing
Gold is usually found mixed with other minerals and must be crushed to begin the separation process.
We are going to be crushed. At some point, something will crush us. Loss, an attack from the enemy, a physical or mental dysfunction, disappointment, etc. Something is going to crush you.
Whether the crushing is a result of our fallen world or the Lord is testing your faith, there is nothing He won’t use to bring Him glory. The crushing is going to happen, and He will use it.
The crushing brings to light the things that we need to be separated from.
The Smelting
After the crushing, the gold is placed in a furnace and heated up so that the gold will melt, leaving behind any impurities that shouldn’t be in the gold.
The fire is going to get hot. There are times in our lives where you’ll hear people say “when it rains it pours.” And it really does feel like that sometimes. But in this case, when the fire gets hot enough, we melt. And the temperature is so unbearable that suddenly things are coming to the surface that were never meant to be there.
God will allow the impurities to surface and you will be able to tangibly see the things that separate you from Him. This is often very painful, but it is a call to surrender those things to Him.
The Purifying :
After the gold is melted, it must go through further purifying, separating it from any bits of impurities still left. It is treated with chloride and an electric current is sent through it so that it is 99.99% gold.
Even when some things have been left behind, there are often things that come with us. Like the impure bits left in the gold, we often hold on so tightly to some of the sin, lies, and worldly desires that we have. And in that process, the Lord has to continue to separate us from what doesn’t look like Him.
In this process, the gold refiner is patient. It is complex and requires extensive time to be sure that the gold comes out perfectly purified.
As the Lord refines us, He is patient. And we are often not. We are begging for the reward, the result, the light at the end of the tunnel. But he doesn’t just want us to reach the earthly destination. He wants us to recognize our impurities and surrender them to him.
The destination is becoming more like Him.
To us, this refining process is dreadful. To Him, it’s necessary because we are precious to Him. He sees our imperfections and while He loves us in them, He wants more for us. He wants us to be so pure that He can see his own reflection in us.
If you imagine a gold bar at the end of the refining process, you would picture a shining, reflective piece of art that beautifully mirrors its maker’s image as he looks into it. Because it is flawless, he can see his own reflection in the perfectly purified gold bar.
This is the picture of Christ looking at you. Once you’ve been purified, you should be completely stripped of your impurities, reflecting His image with such beauty.
Our lives as a whole are a process of refinement. We will never truly look perfectly like HIm until the day we reside with Him in glory. But there are seasons, here on earth, where he calls us to go deeper. Seasons where he needs to take us through the fire to prepare us for what He is calling us to. Because while obedience may start with a “yes,” the Refiner sees fit to prepare us for that yes by melting the impurities in our life away that may hinder us from carrying out His plan the way He desires.
Some truth I’ve learned while being refined:
I have to be patient. His timeline isn’t my timeline. Not just because he doesn’t want me to experience the outcome, but because it requires so much more than I thought it would. He wants me to look more like Him.
I am not a victim. This is a big one. For a little while, I kept attributing all my negative thoughts and circumstances to the enemy. I thought I was being attacked. But I recognize that my loud thoughts that I feel I can’t control, the lies, and my feelings – they are all coming to the surface as he’s purifying me in the furnace. He’s showing me my faults, my untrue beliefs, my lack of faith in Him – and it’s my responsibility to surrender that to Him. I must stop acting like a victim when I am more than a conqueror in Christ.
Suffering is necessary. If I want to do what He has called me to do, look like him, and know more of Him, I am going to share in His suffering. And I have to accept that because I am not perfect, there will always be parts of me that must be surrendered and sanctified.
The Word is the only place I can find hope and gratitude. Without Him, the refining may be unbearable. But with Him, there is freedom in the fire.
What an honor it is to know that God loves us so deeply, that He sees so much more in who we are and how He can use us, rather than our impurities.
My encouragement today is that if you are in a season of suffering, or you’re being obedient but it feels like the outcome you pictured is nowhere in sight, or if you're praying for something that seems will never be answered – there is hope in the Refiner.
Sometimes the outcome is less of a reward than the refining work that is being done in the process.
So I ask you : Is the Lord refining you right now? If yes, are you allowing Him to refine the ugly parts of my heart in the process, or are you giving into the lies of being a victim of the enemy? If no or unsure, read Psalm 139:23-24. Journal through this Psalm and ask the Lord to reveal anything in your life He needs to purify you from.