When You Are Being Processed:Refined as Gold and Sifted as Wheat

“And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:31-32 KJV).

I have traveled through some tough moments, especially the ones that I experienced as a teenager. Those moments felt as if they would last a life time. To be honest, I had no idea that I would ever make it to a place where I could be able to look back on all of them and be able to see that I was being processed. I remember the times when God showed up at the right moments in my life to remind me that I was His. I didn’t see it that way back then, but those moments were like life lines. I lived in the dark and I had no notion of what it would be like to function in the light. I was being processed.

The devil is funny. He will take you through hell on earth in order to destroy the hope that God has something different for you. I was so mentally broken that every successful intersection felt like a mistake. Graduating from high school was by chance. So was graduating from college. After all, I was a broken woman, who in her 20s, finally decided to submit to God, for real this time. I was in a process.

I had given myself away, in the wrong ways, to the wrong people. I was severely depressed, but I was at least with my processor (Jesus). I didn’t know that my “mistakes” would be a part of the passion that I now have to see other people become successful. I didn’t know that the broken heart, that took years to mend, would make room for me to tell young girls what I know and not merely what I heard waiting to awaken love in the proper season..

Yes, I do regret some of the streets that I have walked down in my life, but again, I was being processed. A lot of people cry about being in the fire instead of rejoicing that God is with them in the midst of it. The purpose of the fire is to show others who your God is. Some people are not believers until they see how your belief has delivered you.

“And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.” He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God”(Daniel 3:23-25).

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were processed in front of a crowd. Their process was not quiet or hidden. It was for the eyes of everyone to gaze upon because in the midst of their situation, God was about to show up. They refused to bow down to a false God. There are some people who have bowed down to the false god of depression, anxiety, lust, perversion, and suicide. You have counted yourself out and decided that you deserve to die. Your situation has become bigger than you and you have no idea that the King of Kings wants to do mighty things through you. He wants to use your upbringing to save a nation and generations of young people. You are stuck in the feeling of unworthiness, but you need to know that Jesus died for every flaw that you have when He hung on the cross. You are free and you need to accept the deliverance that God has in His hand concerning your life. You have been processed and it’s time for you to come out of whatever hell-hole you have settled in.

“I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God’” (Zechariah 13:9NLT).

The purpose of the fire is to process you, not to overtake you. This process will show the world who God is through your life, your submission, and your obedience. Nothing that you have done is bigger than what Jesus Christ can bare. You are already forgiven, you just need to go to the Lord humbly on your own behalf and lay every weight that you have carrying, down at his feet. He is waiting and He wants to hear from you today.

Recommended Reading and Prayer: Psalm 139

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Janina B.

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