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Key Bible Verse: He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away Malachi 3:3. Bonus Reading: Isaiah 53:7-12

I heard a silversmith talk about refining silver. He said, "I must sit with my eyes steadily fixed on the furnace; for if the time necessary for refining be exceeded in the slightest degree, the silver will be injured. I never take my eye off the silver in the furnace. It I take it out too early, it won't be purified. If I leave it in too late, it will be injured.

"When the silver is in the fire, I focus. I don't let anything distract me. I watch that silver, carefully waiting for the right moment to take it out."

"When is the right moment?" I asked.

He said, "I know the silver is pure when I can see my face reflected there."

Whenever I find myself in a storm, as soon as the storm arrives, I start saying, "Okay, God, bail me out. Find me. Rescue me!" Sometimes He doesn't rescue me. He doesn't come.

But He is the great silversmith. While I'm in the furnace, He focuses and watches. His job isn't a quick rescue mission. His job is to purify. He holds me until the right moment, and then He comes—never too early, never too late—right on time.

—John Maxwell in Preaching Today

My Response: Why should I trust God's wisdom and goodness even if He chooses not to spare me an ordeal?

Thought to Apply: Batter my heart, three-personed God … / That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend / Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

—JOHN DONNE (Anglican pastor, poet)

Adapted from Preaching Today by permission.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Keep me, Lord, from resenting the tests You bring to bear. Help me accept the toughening process You've prescribed for me.

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