How can I sum up this journey so far?! I’ve had some incredibly sweet moments with the Lord and others on this journey, but through it all it has been a process of refinement.
A super humbling process of stripping back lies that don’t belong, performance measures that don’t reflect the Father’s heart and a refining of my character. This process of refinement will continue throughout life and it can be super painful. But as painful as it is at times, it is also beautiful, as God purifies, calls out, creates and reignites. It’s a journey that takes me from who I currently am (warts & all) and molds me more into who He has called me to be.
It says in Hebrews 12:5-11 TPT:
“And have you forgotten his encouraging words spoken to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t underestimate the value of the discipline and training of the Lord God, or get depressed when he has to correct you. For the Lord’s training of your life is the evidence of his faithful love. And when he draws you to himself, it proves you are his delightful child.” Fully embrace God’s correction as part of your training, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. For who has ever heard of a child who never had to be corrected? We all should welcome God’s discipline as the validation of authentic sonship. For if we have never once endured his correction it only proves we are strangers and not sons. And isn’t it true that we respect our earthly fathers even though they corrected and disciplined us? Then we should demonstrate an even greater respect for God, our spiritual Father, as we submit to his life-giving discipline. Our parents corrected us for the short time of our childhood as it seemed good to them. But God corrects us throughout our lives for our own good, giving us an invitation to share his holiness. Now all discipline seems to be more pain than pleasure at the time, yet later it will produce a transformation of character, bringing a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who yield to it.”
When I think about God’s refinement I usually picture the goldsmith burning the gold in a furnace until all the impurities rise to the surface to be scrapped off. He views us as gold, but in order to keep us pure, we need continual refinement & discipline.
Part of this refinement comes through feedback that we participate in regularly as a team. Hannah describes it so beautifully as, “It’s like good friends picking spinach out of each other’s teeth. You wouldn’t let you friends walk around with spinach in their teeth!” Feedback hasn’t always been easy to hear. In the pain of refinement the temptation to return to what is comfortable and safe is there, to ignore the issue and work to move on. My team sees the best and worst in me. Some days I fail miserably, I say something that hurts or offends another person and I wonder what the heck is wrong with me. But that is the human condition. We are flawed, we are sinful and yet, God is full of grace and acceptance. He loves freely and His love is not conditioned by our actions or words. Oh to love like He loves!
Community is such a fertile ground for growing, stuffing up, forgiving and continually choosing to put on love. In a community of fellow believers, we get to experience and try and show each other the love and grace of God in our humanness and brokenness. If our flaws are not revealed, they cannot be restored into what God initially intended to be our strengths. However, as we are all human, feedback still requires that I invite God to reveal the things that are truth from what has been shared and allow the other comments to fall by the wayside. Because we engage in a spiritual battle and the enemy is always looking for a foothold in your life. I have to actively choose not to believe the things that God considers lies and instead take on His truth.
Refinement has not only come from living in community, but it has also been through personal revelations. I like to call them my Jesus moments, where the Lord takes me on a visual journey and reveals different things to me as we commune together. They both point back to this process of refinement.
07.10 At debrief in Morocco
Jesus wrapping me in His warm embrace, He holds out my heart in front of me, both our hands are around it. It looks like a jewellery box in the shape of a heart, with opal carved out on the top and it is locked. Jesus has the key. He is guarding it to protect it from others coming in and stealing what is inside. There is jewellery inside and He is telling me that jewellery tarnishes over time and it needs to be cleaned every so often to bring back the shine. He says, “I want to clean out the places of your heart that over time have tarnished. To let it shine again. Polishing means refinement. Your jewellery box (your heart) is delicate and elaborate. It is crafted by me so uniquely. It cannot be replicated. My delight is in you. That means I take pleasure in you, am proud of you, enjoy spending time with you and proudly show you off to others”.
27.10 At our squad wide girls weekend, Laura led us on an exercise of picturing a house and asking the Holy Spirit to essentially ‘clean house’ by revealing areas of darkness or any junk in our lives that need to be moved and light allowed in.
We enter and the front of the house is welcoming, there is a sun room. It is bright and light. Soon we see a basement hatch/ door. My initial thought was a dungeon because it carried darkness with it and reflected an area I didn’t want to go. Fear and insecurity were highlighted as the labels attached to this place. Jesus opens the hatch and allows the darkness to be flooded with light. I notice supplies, tools & materials in this basement to be used for projects. There are spider webs on these tools. The webs represent my performance measures that have controlled how these have been used and also prevented me from creating things. God wants to clean all the tools, flood the basement with light and use the materials in there to create beautiful things. He turns my fear and insecurity into something beautiful for His glory.
Let us embrace refinement, for God desires us to be more like Jesus and we are considered His children whom He loves!
