Day 140

 ^“I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev 7:14 NASB.

A Bible study group once stumbled across the verse in Mal 3:3.  “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. . .” They were curious about what God and a refiner of silver would have in common. One of the group volunteered to investigate.

She went to a jeweller and asked to watch him work with silver. She asked the craftsman why he was holding the silver in the flame. He said, “It is because the heat of the flame takes away all impurities; the hotter the flame, the purer the metal is when it comes out.”

The woman asked, “But how do you know when the silver is ready to come out of the flame?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said the refiner, “I know it’s ready when I can see my reflection in it.

The basic meaning behind the word translated “tribulation” is “pressure” or “hard circumstances.” We can all relate to the idea of “great tribulation.” We have all experienced events in our lives that have brought us great stress, trauma and pressure. When passing through such times of tribulation it is nearly impossible to believe that anything good could come out of intense suffering. It is only with the perspective of time passed that we can often see God’s refining hand reaching into our lives and using the pain of our hard experiences to refine us and bring us to a level of usefulness that could not have happened any other way.

Whenever I feel that I am in an unbearably “hot spot,” I take comfort in the fact that my “refiner” is holding me very carefully, that no matter what it feels like, I can be sure that He won’t ever leave me alone, not even for a second. And I can rejoice in the fact that, if the suffering continues longer than I think necessary, it is because He has a goal for me. When I am ready to be taken out of the “fire,” He will be able to see His reflection in me!