Elohim...try me and know my THOUGHTS. A Refiner's Story

Psa 139:23-24  Search me, O Ěl, and know my heart; Try me, and know my thoughts; 

  And see if an idolatrous way is in me, And lead me in the way everlasting. 

I am still pondering the effect of thoughts on our lives and our walk with Abba.  I am still praying about the thoughts that creep in from time to time.  Today as I was talking with Abba, this scripture (noted above) was open in my bible and as I was praying I looked on it (I hadn't read the passage  yet) and read it and I considered it.  I began to just be so amazed at how Abba's great mercies are toward us as I thought about what the verse was saying...David is asking Abba to search his heart and to know his thoughts, which Abba certainly does know, and then David asks Abba to try him.  I thought about that a bit...David asks Abba to try him.  If we consider ourselves as silver or gold, then we know we must be tried or refined in order that all impurites (idolatry, wickedness, anything placed above Abba's truths) are purged from us so that we are pure and come forth as pure gold so that we then are  in the way of everlasting life.  

The sages refer to the years of the wilderness wanderings as “the iron crucible”.  A metaphor of the vessel silversmiths use to refine silver. 

 See Malachi 3:3 Elohim will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver and He will purify His people.  

THE WORK OF A REFINER

When learning about how a silversmith does his work he explains that he has to hold the silver where the flame is the hottest in order to burn away all impurities.  The silversmith was asked, “do you have to sit there the whole time with the silver?”  He replied, “Not only do I have to stay with it the entire time but I must keep a careful eye on it, because if the silver is left in the flame a moment too long it will be destroyed.”

The next question asked of him:  “how do you know when the silver is fully refined?”  “That’s easy, he replied.  “When I see my image in it.”

When we learn of this process of refining, we can see the meaning behind the metaphor more clearly.  Abba holds His people in the hottest part of the fire in order to purify them but in the process He does not leave us or allow us to be destroyed.  And the purification will be complete only when God see’s His image in us.

Such an amazing picture of the work He is doing in us, isn’t it?

I am so amazed that Abba considers my path, He knows the way that I go and He cares to hear me when I call on Him and He brings light to my path that He leads me on.  

Who am I that you would consider me...I am yours.

Thank you Abba for the way you have prepared for your people, may you have mercy on us as you try our hearts!  

Amein