December 20, 2004

Tried By Fire

You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. —Psalm 66:10

Bible In One Year: Micah 1-3; Revelation 11

The main end of life is not to do but to become," F. B. Meyer said. And for this we are being prepared every day. As silver is refined by fire, the heart is often refined in the furnace of sadness. The psalmist said in his sorrow, "We went through fire" (Psalm 66:12).

The refining process may be very painful, but it will not destroy us, for the Refiner sits by the furnace tending the flame. He will not allow us to be tried beyond our endurance; it is for our good.

We may not understand why we have to endure such misery year after year. The ordeal seems endless and pointless. Our days are wasted, or so it appears. We feel as if we are doing nothing of lasting significance.

But God is doing what matters—we are being refined. He is placing us into a crucible in which we acquire patience, meekness, humility, compassion, and the other "quiet" virtues our souls naturally lack.

So don't be afraid and don't fret. Your present trial, as painful as it may be, has been screened through God's wisdom and love. The Refiner sits beside the crucible tempering the flames, monitoring the process, waiting patiently until His face is mirrored in the surface. —David Roper

"As thy day thy strength shall be!"
This should be enough for thee;
He who knows thy frame will spare
Burdens more than thou canst bear. —Havergal

The fires of testing can produce a shining testimony.

In the Psalmist's era silver was mined very aggressively, with a major mining complex in Greece running four hundred feet deep and way under the ocean. The tunnel pictures I have seen (tunnels are still in existence) show slither room, not even crawl room.

Then, crush and smelt the ore. The ore had a high lead content, over half, and to remove the lead adequately enough from the lead-silver mixture the alloy was heated until the lead vaporized (lead vaporizes nicely at 1800 degrees F. while silver has just melted - high white heat) and went off into the air as smoke sized particles, and into the lungs of the workers and all downwind. This lead and lead oxide dust would form drifts, and was the source of the lead used so freely in that era. Pots and pans were lead alloy, low grade pewter, and toxic as can be by modern standards. Folks have tried to calculate lead exposure and build up in the body, and done some measurement of human remains, and wonder if the reason the Romans sometimes acted so irrationally and had such short lifespans was lead poisoning.

Makes an interesting ponder on the Psalmist's metaphor, simile, actually.