Lovingly Stripped

 So the makers of Lodge cast-iron cookware say they've perfected the art and they've continued to turn out quality for over a hundred years - even when other factories closed. They've adapted, changed, overcome. But they say the secret comes in a simple detail: before the melted cast-iron can be poured, it must be stripped of its impurities. There's actually an assigned person who willingly stands in front of the blazing-hot container that's extracted the liquid from the furnace and scrapes off the impurities. No casting in moulds until the iron is pure. 

And so, too, maybe one cannot be properly shaped by the Savior until they've been stripped of everything that doesn't belong. Until what's impure is cleaned out so that only the finest remains. Perhaps the old nature has to change before the new one can emerge. 

The liquid, they say, is made of the perfect mix - a blend of metals that are exactly portioned out. A creation that's been fine-tuned over decades. The blend even includes imperfect Lodge items that never made it to the distribution line... flaws being recycled so that nothing is wasted. And I'm seeing the reflection of the Father in every way as I watch... 

Before you and I ever existed, He saw the finished product that would become us. He envisioned us when we were only a dream in His heart. And He created the perfect blend of qualities, giftings, personality, and even weaknesses that make up who we are, what we look like, and how we tick. We are His beautiful workmanship, comprised of everything He felt was necessary to include in the human package that became incredible us. We have, indeed, been "fearfully and wonderfully made."

But we are still flawed. For even the perfect blend cannot ensure a perfect final product unless it is purified. And this is why nobody can ever be afraid of the fire. 

Fear the flames and you miss the fact that they cannot hurt you when overseen by the sovereign Lord. He only designs to consume that which must be removed in order for you to become who He always saw all along. The heat enables your impurities to be stripped away, all with the loving intention of never withholding "any good thing from those who walk uprightly."

There is no arriving at the holy life without giving up something in exchange for something better. No satisfaction of seeing the rewarded blessings on the other side without surrendering to the scraping, cleaning, removing of His expert hands. It's in the turning loose while still remaining grateful that we see a glimpse of what He's after. It's in the remembering that nothing goes to waste with God, even our pain. And all our losses and all our gains all come together in this melted, pliable blend which God refines and we become a poured-out sacrifice. 

And who would've guessed that once those Lodge skillets are poured into sand-moulds and hardened, they are then sent to be seasoned and that part of that process is beating them with metal pellets in a sudsy wash to remove more impurities so that when the oil eventually smoothes them, they come out clean and perfect and useful? 

And isn't it true in all of life, too, that one must be seasoned with hardship and washed in grace and beat on by the trials of life before we can be fit for the Master's use? 

Sometimes I find myself telling God I think He's being too harsh, forgetting in the moment that the pain is only weakness leaving my soul and that I'm being built up, made new, transformed in this process called life. Often, what I protest the most is actually what I most need. And I only fight it because I don't want the difficult way. I want the best outcome but without the discomfort and, slowly over time, He's showing me that it's not the easy way that gets you to glory but the deliberate way...the patient way...the stripping away. 

I need to let God keep cleansing me, purifying me. I need to stop fighting this shaping process and learn to start embracing it more. Need to ask God more often to put me into the fire - to take away what doesn't belong - so that I can become more like Him. As much as I hate the pain that goes into this thing called life, what emerges from the furnace is a useful tool that can endure. And that's what I want to be.