Costly Oil

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  James 1:2-4 NKJV 

Going through a trial is never easy.  It isn’t something we normally welcome. When the trials come, it doesn't mean that God does not love you, has abandoned you, or given up on you, not in the very least. All of us who follow Jesus will go through various trials. God allows these seasons of pain and uncertainty to refine us and draw us into a deeper dependence on Him. Through a challenging time, we learn to rely less on our own understanding or our own human capabilities.

God knows exactly what He is doing.  There is a complexity to the work He performs in us. We can sense the inner workings of God on many levels.  When our faith is tested by fire, it not only produces patience, but it produces so much more.  These are times when God draws us closer to Himself.  He reveals things to us, even revealing Himself to us in a very personal way.  It is a time of close fellowship where there is a beautiful exchange of revealing, knowing, growing, trusting, and maturing.  This is the perfect and complete work that God performs in us.  And, like rhythmic waves on a shoreline, it will continue over and over again.  But God is gentle with us.  He knows our frame and knows that we are fragile.  The Master Refiner knows exactly how much perfecting heat to apply.

Like a graceful dance, we will go through seasons of testing.  These will be times of intimacy where we will lack nothing because He is overseeing the work.  When we go through suffering with the right attitude, the right God perspective, He produces something new within us.  We experience something profound with the Lord that no one can take from us.  The crushing produces costly oil.  It’s ours, and we become a vessel that carries the oil of joy.

Cindy Smith