God spoke these words to the prophet Isaiah as an indicator of His ongoing plan to shape His people into something worthy of His name.

(ESV) Isaiah 48:8-11 sets the stage:

8 “You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before your birth you were called a rebel.

9 For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.

10 Behold I have refined you , but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.

11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”

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I came to know the the Lord at age 26. I struggled to understand His love and mercy, and still do to this very day. My faith journey has been mixed with ups and downs, seasons of a cold heart, and questions that sometimes go unanswered. Over the decades, God has been faithful to shape me, not by my own hand or diligence, but by transformative crucibles.

Now it is somewhat counter intuitive to welcome crucibles when we suffer, we wonder why God would allow it? When we are blessed materially, in our health, or in relationships, we think we somehow earned it by doing something right. I mean, the aim of following God is to to secure blessings right? Developing a good name with the Creator helps, right? In this way, we avoid the unpleasant things in life, and gain the good things, at least that is what we were trained to believe. The problem is, that all religions are based on the premise that leads us to believe we can get things from the Creator or His creation by adhering to a moral set of rules or principles that give us the good life in a temporal rather than eternal sense. The problem with this thinking is it never leads to self-reflection regarding our motivations. It is really self-seeking clothed in righteousness, something God despises. So how does He address this rebellious creature?

God places us in trials, tribulations, and furnaces. Crucibles are His answer. We may think we have a sufficient character and equipping to carry out His calling on our lives individually or collectively, but we do not. We must be tried in various trials and tribulations in order to develop into the type of people we need to be. The problem that many of us face is thinking we can pray, surround ourselves with certain people, attend church, do devotionals, and all sorts of religious activities and call it good enough. Sadly, we are in charge of those things and we choose them as a way of drawing nearer to God, but He chooses the crucibles that will actually cause us to draw nearer, and those things we choose, are secondary to His. Further, at times they hinder what God is doing, because people often seek to comfort us, while God seeks to equip, no matter the level of discomfort. Crucibles purge us of sin, dependency, erroneous thinking, and our own assessments of our spiritual progress.

Dear saint, God has various crucibles with your name on them that will prepare you for the work He has called you to and as a means to making you worthy of the His name. He does it because of the eternal relationship He has already enjoyed with His precious Son and Spirit. He knows the value of this relationship and must teach us to value it if we are to get to know him more fully. We must become more like Him to even fathom the blessings of oneness. He has invested in you from eternity’s past and will not divest. His decisions are perfect and He needs no advice from us. He has adopted us into His eternal family. He ransomed you and sealed the purchase with the blood of His Son. The process of forming you into someone worthy are in the hands of the Father who called you, the Son who died for you and intercedes for you, and the Spirit who bears patiently with you as He sanctifies and transforms you. Let us rejoice in the aim of the crucible and its necessity in our lives. Let God be glorified as you emerge from each one. Let no man judge your crucible or look down on you as you go through it, and let no one place you under pharaoh’s whip to transform you into their servant. We serve the living God.