Proverbs 17:3

3 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
But the Lord tests the hearts.

Proverbs 27:21

21 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
And a man is valued by what others say of him.

Are you enduring a trial right now? Even those believers of the most rock-solid faith struggle at times. When the tall hills close in over the road you walk, as the canyon rim grows dark against the sky, and you find yourself once more in the valley of the shadow, you must remember that you are not alone.

Jesus’s own inner circle of disciples suffered greatly for their faith in an increasingly hostile world, with nearly all of them meeting death at the hands of persecutors. 

Before the end, each one of them was greatly tested in his faith and endurance to carry the message of the gospel to the ears of future believers. In the earliest days, Peter and the disciples were arrested multiple times, beaten, and threatened with death. Twice, the angel of the Lord freed them from Prison, once in Acts 5, and again in Acts 12, when Peter was chained between two soldiers. 

This had to have been far from a happy, carefree time for that small group of people who, just a short time before, had walked with and marveled at the gentle Son of God. With each blow, arrest, death, and discouragement, they could not help but remember His sobering words of warning–touched with a shade of sorrow:  

18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.–John 15:18-20

Many of the great saints of the church have struggled in their faith. Augustine went through bouts of severe depression after his dear mother Monica passed away. Monica had been a true woman of faith who prayed earnestly for her son to come to Christ. She cried for his soul so urgently that Bishop Ambrose told her, “Woman, the child of so many tears shall never perish.”

Reformer Martin Luther and Puritan John Owen were known to suffer depression, while other great lights of the faith such as John Calvin endured great bodily afflictions. 

It is almost as if the life that you are to have if you are called to follow Christ will be a life of great joy, but also a life of pain. Indeed all who seek to follow the path of righteousness are guaranteed to suffer. For this world, darkened by sin and its effects, cannot tolerate the light. But to be chosen to carry it, is a signature honor–despite the pain.

Salomon knows this and as he writes in Proverbs, chapter 17, he reveals a timeless truth about God’s method of making His servants worthy of the task before them: 

3 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
But the Lord tests the hearts.–Proverbs 17:3

The “refining pot” and “furnace” are tools used for the refining of those two most precious of commodities in this life: silver and gold. When these metals are superheated, impurities are separated, leaving the true metal. Silver must be heated to 1,763°F and gold to an excess of 2,150°F in order to achieve this.  

Starting to get the picture of what Solomon is describing? Commentator Bruce Waltke explains:  

Human beings can design instruments to test precious metals, but the one who tests the heart is I AM.–Bruce Waltke, “Proverbs” 

This is a common enough expression in the Bible and in literature. So much so that Solomon employs the phrase again in chapter 27:

21 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
And a man is valued by what others say of him.–Proverbs 27:21

If you can imagine a furnace or heater that can reach 2,150°F, you can imagine how harsh such an environment must be inside. And yet, it is completely necessary to produce the purest silver or gold. 

When I was a kid, we kept horses on our farm. On a regular basis a “farrier” or blacksmith would come by the place to shoe and treat our horses’ hooves. I was amazed at his strength in handling such large and often cantankerous animals, but more impressed by a small, heavy furnace that he kept in his truck. He would fire up this contraption and superheat horseshoes to hammer them into proper shape.  

Once, the blacksmith took a small ingot of plain steel, and as he told stories to us and chatted to the older folks, he heated, hammered and shaped it into the form of a snake. It was endlessly entertaining and absolutely fascinating to 10-year-old me–and I recall the adults were quite impressed as well

Such a violent process, nevertheless, is transformative. It is how God works in your life to make you more like His son: 

29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.–Romans 8:29

Solomon, perhaps, remembers a song, written by his father David: 

10 For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.

11 You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.

12 You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But You brought us out to rich fulfillment.–Psalm 66:10-12

God tests those whom He loves. David knows this, for as he fled through the desert from Saul, or endured battle on a parched desert plain, he agonized over his plight–and yet saw God’s mighty hand of grace in every hardship. He knew that God was breaking him of all softness, hardening his body and spirit for the task ahead: the next battle to fight, the next threat to counter, and the life of a king of a nation. 

All of this was making David harder, tougher, and yet sweeter, as his psalms reveal. Bruce Waltke explains further:

He strips bare all pretensions and tests all human hearts to determine their genuineness and purity.–Waltke

The purity of David’s faith shines through in the psalms–and God loves him for it.  He came to see suffering not as punishment, but as purification, and that if he holds on to God, clings to Him, he will be refined into gold. 

Ages before, the long-suffering Job saw this. After losing all that he had, enduring great pain and torment, he sat in the ashes and waited on God. At last, chastened and refocused in his pain, he declared: 

8 “Look, I go forward, but He is not there,
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;

9 When He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him;
When He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him.

10 But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.–Job 23:10

Can you endure such a test as this? I fear some days that I cannot, and yet God sustains you and me through His spirit, for we are in Christ Jesus, His son.

What trials do you face? Are you struggling with a troubled marriage? Are you enduring failure in some earthly venture, or feeling discouragement in pastoral ministry? Do you suffer physical pain and debilitating ailments? Age comes for us all, and our frail bodies–so often mistreated in our youth and ignorance–conspire to confound us. 

Like Job, you may wish to complain. And that is okay. God can handle it. Many psalms are psalms of complaint–but always David is looking UP. Remember, your complaints must always go heavenward, for there your Father resides and listens. This reminds me of a scene in the 1998 movie, “Saving Private Ryan.” A group of soldiers is complaining–or “griping”–to their officer, and he explains how it is done:

Private Reiben: Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don't gripe at all?

Captain Miller: I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger.

Private Reiben: I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?

Captain Miller: Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering."

A lighthearted moment, in a serious movie about men in combat during WWII. Nevertheless, a truth is revealed about how you and I carry our complaints heavenward.

Is your view of God big enough to allow Him to handle your afflictions, your pain, and your complaints? Can you let Him purify you as part of His love for you?

Charles Spurgeon, himself no stranger to depression and pain, provides some beautiful encouragement in this. He says: 

Why build a railroad bridge that cannot handle the load? Gold is put into the furnace because it is Gold. It is useless to refine rubbish there. A first-rate diamond will undergo more cutting than an inferior one. The great Owner of heaven’s jewels uses a sharper cutting machine on the most valuable stones. Our king desires that we have many facets to reflect the glory of His name.–Charles Spurgeon, Sermon

When you feel the pain of trials, you remember that God has chosen you for them. He has blessed you with suffering, for He considers you worthy of handling it. What an honor this is! But you may not feel that way.

You pray to Jesus for a miracle, but none comes. So you lower the bar, and pray that He simply give you comfort in your pain, but no comfort is provided. You long for joy, scream for it. But only silence. 

It is only later, when you have recovered and carried on, confident once again in His presence, that you realize that all along He had been waiting for you to come to Him with your desires–and all along He had been silently at work in your life. So that you can go forth and bring comfort to others in His name.

This is, perhaps, the hardest part of being a believer: struggling, but without martyrdom. Suffering, but without relief. But in the end, you recall the One who was the suffering servant, who went willingly to death on a cross, where His Father would turn His face from Him in abhorrence of the sin His Son would take on. 

The Apostle Paul knew this, on those lonely roads across a heartless empire, and he offers encouragement to you and me:

16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,–II Corinthians 4:16-17

Your pain, even your enduring of sorrow and death of those you love, is but a fleeting thing. With each tear you can feel the eternal weight of glory, for each one falls like thunderclap to the ground, where your Father gathers them to his bottle [Psalm 56:8], and strengthens you with the steel of His mighty forge. 

The Monday—Friday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay and this Saturday Deep is written by Matt Richardson. To subscribe to all the DEEPs click here:

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.