Greetings from Austin Street

Blessed Sunday to you all!  All is well here at 811. 

Dear God, Thank you for valuing me so greatly. Please help me to endure the heat in my life so I can truly shine for you.  Thank you for accepting me and handling my life with gentleness and kindness. I am willing and eager to me be obedient and to be molded into one who is fit for your service. I do not promise to be perfect Lord, but I will do as you ask and serve as the Holy Spirit leads. I love you Lord. In Jesus name, amen.

I love watching the snippets of the shows that show refiners in their craft o refining gold and silver.  The solid mass of raw metal is heated to hottest of fires until it is melted enough to separate the pure metal from the impurities. There is also a wonderful narration in the old Ten Commandments movie with Charleton Heston as he has been exiled from Egypt and walks across the desert to Midian. During that 40 day walk the narrator compares the journey of Moses to the refining process; driving the idolatry mindset from Moses and causing him to seek to serve the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the living God.  God even tells Moses his name, I AM.

I don’t think that God asks us to cross burning deserts on foot armed with a staff and a day’s ration of bread and water, but I do believe that God does make us ready for service through our everyday living. We do not have victories every day. In fact some days we might classify as epic failures and some days our hearts are broken. The good news for us is that God has compassion for us when we fail and treats our wounded spirits with love and tender mercies. Sometimes our lives are very heated with the pressures of each day. When we offer the pressures and heated moments in our lives over to God I believe God begins to reshape us into servants to be sent out to be His loving representatives.  And here is something to ponder…perhaps when these daily pressures of life occur we need to think that God looks upon us with such great value that He has allowed us to be refined by fire and made fit for the highest service.  Just a thought…

“I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined and will test them as gold is tested.”

Zechariah 13: 9

Take joy in the journey and be willing to be reshaped for God’s highest use. Wear comfortable shoes, get some sleep and think pink!  Love you all, Bruce and Gaylene