I have started calling the prison where I work my “refinery”.
What does it mean to refine something?
“to remove impurities or unwanted elements from a substance”
Well, if you will allow me to be the “substance” in that definition, then what I am saying is that the prison is being used by God to remove impurities and unwanted elements from me.
What are those unwanted impurities and elements?
- Faithlessness
- Self-sufficiency
- Weakness (that comes when I believe I am self-sufficient and don’t need God that much)
- Anger, sadness, and anxiety that stem from my faithlessness
- Judgement
- Pride
That’s just to name a few.
So how does it work, this refining process? I go into work and face really difficult and stressful situations I get overwhelmed. I feel weak. I feel emotions that weigh me down (or shut me down). I take my eyes off Jesus. I doubt His Word. Then I try to pull myself together, and I fail. All the while, God is watching. I eventually crash and burn. Then, in my little pit, I am forced to look up and see God. I have suffered grief. I have been through trial. Then God says to me, “Let me help you. You can’t do this on your own. It is too much. Let me strengthen you. Let me pour healing oil over you. Let me put you back together. If you will just allow me to work in you, even though your faith is so small, I will take away your pride, weakness, anger, sadness, anxiety. I will take change your judgmental heart. I will humble you. I will leave you with a stronger faith in who I am and what I can do.”
I have a lot of confidence in saying that if I had not spent the last twenty-one years working in “the refinery”, a maximum security prison, my faith would not be even close to what it is today. God has used my work at the prison to help me see clearly how much I need Him, and that He is all that He says that He is in His Word.
It is no fun going to the refinery The process of being refined is difficult and painful. Yet, as God does His work, He shows me that it is all worth it, and He is not wasting a minute of it.
What is your refinery? I know you don’t like it, but God will use it. He will make you better.
6In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. – 1 Peter 1:6-7
For Jesus,
Rob