.png)
“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”
Isaiah 48:10
The Covid-19 pandemic lockdown caught us all and my family by surprise and required us to adapt to changes and to embrace transformations. There was no running away during moments of conflict. Tempers flared frequently over the smallest things at home, and our patience began to wane as the days passed. It was hard. Most times these tensions between family members simply revealed deeper issues that had yet been resolved and swept under the carpet for years. They were just too uncomfortable to speak about.
It was as if the lockdown was a catalyst to the revealing of areas the Lord desires to see realigned and restored in our lives individually, and as a family. In Isaiah 48:10, the Lord tells Israel that He has purified her in the fire. He has tested her in the furnace.
The purification of gold or silver requires the refiner to place it into a furnace, and the heat soon separates the dross from the precious metal. What is left after the great heat is a precious substance – clean and pure, after it has come forth from the fire.
Indeed, He is not just revealing deeper issues to us in the fire, but also calling us to respond by allowing Him to remove the dross from our lives. - By EL