Refiners Fire ~ Perfection

Zech 13:9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”

I’m Not Perfect!

I sometimes feel like I come across as a miss-know-it-all. Let me stop you right there in that thought, I am the farthest thing from known perfection since my son was born. To me, he was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen!

Guess what, he grew up and is not perfect either! Wow, how did something so perfect, reshape and transform into an imperfect being? Life, that’s how. Life happens to all of us and instead of being perfect we are refined. We are but grains of sand in a shell waiting to become the perfect pearl.

We are an imperfect species and as we grow we, in all of our instabilities, try to refine ourselves to become the most perfect beings possible. To me, there is only one way to achieving such status and that is to allow the Holy Spirit to live in me and take up a residence in my soul.

Only through the storms are we going to find the refiners fire to go through the hailstorm and shape our inner beings into something of perfection. Maybe not what perfection is to you but what perfection is to me. Since we’re all on different paths leading to different places we will all achieve our own perfection in our own time. Maybe not even in the time that we want or expect but by the Holy Spirits time. 

As I woke today and encountered a double rainbow I knew right then that there was a beauty that was going to encompass my entire day. If I were to allow negativity to drive my day it would have wiped the slate clean of such beauty so early in the morning.  The sun was struggling to peek through heavy clouds in the east while I was facing west and there it was a double-arced rainbow alight in wondrous color right before my eyes. 

I tried with all my might to see the beginning and the end of the rainbow and what I saw was myself, standing midway underneath the joyous arc. I smiled taking in all the beauty and became one with the luminous shape, so much so, I stood in the quiet coolness of the morning and allowed the aroma of the crisp air to shape my day.

As the day progressed the clouds swallowed the rainbow; lightning crashed as thunder erupted in a calamity of rumbles unleashing a torrent of rain that washed over the parched fields. I sat in the stillness of the darkness that had blanketed the room. The rain, calling me to write…I embraced my inner peace of perfection and sat to write today’s blog. 

No, no one is perfect and judging people for their imperfections makes you even less perfect than the Holy One had intended when he refined the pot of gold He shaped you into. He never left you alone to sort out this thing we call life. He never once made you feel that you had to achieve perfection because one thing I’ve learned, He loves us the way we are, only because in his perfection He created you! You ARE perfect in His eyes.

When my son drove off today to go to work in the rain, my maternal instincts wanted to worry about the muddy roads, the nighttime driving when he comes home and all the worries a mother faces but the words ‘I love you, mom’ as he drove off, was like a rainbow of peace washing over my soul. I thought of him going off in his own direction perfecting what his soul means to him. 

Peace has completed my day!

May the Light of the Lord wash over you all and bless you on your individual journey.