I Have Refined Thee, But Not With Silver

“Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10). I was struggling with this verse this morning. I even tried looking at some commentary online, but it still wasn’t clicking for me. But as I continued to think about it, the Lord showed me one possible meaning. When you refine silver, you hold the metal in the hottest part of the flame until all of the dross and impurities burn or melt away. That’s the end of the road for silver, but it’s not the end of the road for us when we are chosen in the furnace of affliction. The flames are going to get a lot hotter. The Lord doesn’t just want to refine the dross out of us. He intends to refine the silver out as well. It is never pleasant in the furnace of affliction, but at least as the dross begins to burn away, we can understand why that had to go. We were ashamed and embarrassed by that anyway, and we are relieved to be rid of it. But when the flames get even hotter, and now even our silver has to be burned away, this is when it gets really tough. Silver is shiny and beautiful and valuable and precious. Why does that have to burn away too? There’s a phrase in writing called “Kill your darlings.” Sometimes you fall in love with a character or a plot point or a certain description because you think it is beautiful and brilliant, but it sticks out, interrupts the flow of the narrative, throws a wrench in the workings of the story. As painful as it is, for the good of the story, for artistic integrity, you have to kill your darlings and cut out the parts that aren't working, as good and shiny and precious as they might be. When we are in the refiner's fire, after we have sacrificed our bad habits and our sins, when the dross burns away and yet the heat of the crucible continues and even gets hotter, then the silver, the good and the better things will need to burn away too, until only the best, the most precious, that which is purer than silver and gold remains. Christ said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person, with their silver and gold, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. We will have to let our gold and silver melt away before we can return to our Heavenly Father. Not just monetary wealth, but everything that we love more than we love our Savior. When Peter denied knowing the Savior, he was still in the furnace of Affliction and still had not yet burned all his silver away. When the Savior asked him three times if he loved his Lord more than fish, more than silver, more than his own life, Jesus invited Him to be refined, but not with silver, so that he could say to the beggar more truthfully than the man could know "Silver and gold have I none." All of Peter's silver had burned away. Before he began to climb Mount Moriah, Abraham had been refined, but when he descended the mount after having offered up his son and heir, Abraham was refined, but not with silver. When Esther risked her life to save her people, she was willing to give up the whole kingdom and whole mountains of silver and so she too was refined, but not with silver. It may not seem worth it when we are in the hottest part of the flame and have to watch careers and homes and loved ones and dreams and hopes melt away like liquid silver, but that silver is weighing us down and holding us back and preventing us from being as purified as we might be. We don't know how pure we can be until we are willing to stay in the heat until not just the dross but even the previous silver melts away. The Lord wants to refine us, but not with silver.