Refine Me in Your Fire

These last months have been another true season where God with his grace and love has come down and done a work in my heart. It’s a bittersweet season, that's the way it always is when God disciples his sons and daughters whom he loves. God loves us enough to just rip strips of who we are off. He does so, that more of who HE is can be revealed. It really isn't pleasant when God comes down and trims the tree, cuts away the branches, but HE just wants us to be more fruitful.
So in that I am trying to thank God in yet another season. Yes it's been hard...fire, trials, hardship...it seems like I always live here...the desert, the wilderness. But this is where God meets me. God meets me in my suffering, maybe its because He knows in the midst of the fire, trials, suffering that is where he can change me, not just the surface stuff, but change the stuff deep within. HE takes the chisel to my heart and starts chipping away the rough spots. Yes it hurts, often times I even scream "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING!??!" Yet somewhere in the midst of the screaming and the pain I know He's just refining me, making me more and more like HIM. Some days I think I would rather have no pain, but then I realize there would be no gain without pain. My head screams "ENOUGH ALREADY!!!" but my heart/spirit man cries - "Continue LORD, as long as you reveal the finished masterpiece."
I know that in this wilderness I will be tested, hopefully I will come out the other side more refined.
One thing I know is that even though I feel alone in this wilderness, God has NOT left me. Even though I may not hear Him speaking or I may not feel His arms around me, I know that I know He is near and that He's still guiding me, just like always. HE continues to prove Himself faithful...even if I fail and am faithless at times. When I can not see Him in front of me or to my side, I have to remember that HE is behind me holding me up.

Fire, trial, desert - would the real me please step forward! And for the rest of me - DIE in the REFINERS FIRE!!! Purify! I want to reflect you, Father. Make me more like you as I walk through this fire.

Isaiah 43:2 – “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.”