Going for the Gold

Watering:

  If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

I Corinthians 3

Watching:

I’ve been thinking about the burning bush lately. Aflame. Burning without earthly fuel. Consumed in fire… but not destroyed. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the raging furnace. God was there

“the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.”

Refined by fire.

Refined by God.

God at work… making the dirtiest of grounds holy.. ..

producing gold.

Wondering:

I have no idea what will remain in my life. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe just using my smile, when I least expect it, is indeed ‘good enough.’

Maybe going through the fire is a little like going into an MRI when you’re claustrophobic — sure at first, with an “I can do this” face on: closed eyes, deep breaths, and fervent self-talk: I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Only to find yourself sweating, and freaking, crawling out of your skin with every itch you’ve ever felt coming out to remind you how helplessly immobile you are. Loud noises, distant voices… one sentence forming on your tongue now, one sentence away from sanity: “Get me outta here!” it your only mantra now.

Then, drawing from the depths of desperation, you whisper, and then shout. “Jesus! Save me” and don’t care if anyone else hears you losing it… Because you find out that in the losing it, you actually find it. Hope. Truth in the darkness, as He whispers back. “Open your eyes.” You open the eyes that had been clenched tight and you see light. Light past the cool wash cloth laid across your face to ‘soothe’ you. Light outside the darkness of mind that you were drowning in, and you are saved. In one word, you are saved from fire, from hell, from self…

“Jesus.”

Waiting:

Jesus, I want gold. I want you. I don’t want fire. Let me rephrase that: I don’t want my OWN fire. Let me becoming willing, joyful, accepting of yours.