Into the Crucible
My devotional reading, this morning, is from Proverbs 17, in which I read:
“The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tries hearts.”
Proverbs 17:3
I have often figuratively said that everything in one’s life should be put into a furnace, and that whatever survives is worth keeping. Never regret when you release something and it stays gone forever. You didn’t need it.
Attachments to possessions are almost always the best things to let go of. Attachments to relationships, especially close ones, are far harder to release. Attachments to our own beliefs, ideas, and habits are the hardest to release.
God tries our hearts, though; and I believe one reason may be to reveal attachments in our lives that have become idols. What have we allowed to become more important to us than our relationship with Him?
This morning, I am encouraged, and I encourage you, to ask God for the grace to release anything that might be disrupting your relationship with Him. If that which we release is truly a blessing and a gift from God, it will remain or return in time; for God loves you, wants to bless you with good things, and will provide for your needs.
“And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:8
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