Refining Thoughts

There are some desponding, morbid, murmuring, ungrateful souls who find reasons for complaining everywhere, but a man of David’s spirit, on the contrary, sucks honey out of every flower and praises God in connection with everything. --Spurgeon

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
Job 23:10

"In whatever trial we face, we can be strong and courageous because it's not over...there is more to the story...The end is always that THIS - whatever "this" is - will result in our good and His glory."
source unknown

I don't know the writer of this chorus, but as we drove home late last night, it was the prayer of my heart and lips:
Living God, consuming fire
Burn the sin from my life
Make Your will my desire
Take my life in Your hands
Purify me with Your blood
Till I shine far brighter than purest gold
In Your eyes.

While googling for the author of the above lyrics, I found a post of my own from Feb. 2007 that included those words, as well as the below passage from Hind's Feet on High Places that has been on my mind again lately:

Last of all he took her up the stairway to the highest floor. There they found a room with a furnace in which gold was being smelted and refined of all its dross. Also in the furnace were rough pieces of stone and rock containing crystals. There were put in the great heat of the oven and left for a time. On being taken out, behold, they were glorious jewels, flashing as though they had reeived the fire into their very hearts. As Much-Afraid stood beside the Shepard, loving shrinkingly into the fire, he said the loveliest thing of all.

"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay they foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones" (Isa. 54:11). Then he added, "My rarest and choicest jewels and my finest gold are those who have been refined in the furnace of Egypt," and he sang one verse of a little song:

I'll turn my hand upon thy heart,
And purge away thy dross,
I will refine thee in my fire
Remake thee at my cross.

Yes, Lord! Refine and purify us. Make us choice jewels and finest gold, not for our glory, but for Your own!

Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
Psalm 115.1