FROM JAMEE:

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.
The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."

If you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you. Whatever you're going through, you'll be a better person in the end.

What I learned this week: Good News for Cave Dwellers

"He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.

Failure is the test of greatness."

Herman Melville

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In John Ortberg's book

"If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat,"
he says...

"All of us face storms in life that threaten
to overwhelm us. Loved ones become ill.

Finances dwindle. We fail at something that's

important to us. Some people, when faced with adversity,

are energized and motivated to pursue

new learning, greater persistence, more vigorous

commitment, and more courageous hearts.

Others who face adversity feel

utterly defeated and discouraged.

They lose hope, want to hide,
and may resolve to never again

get out of the boat.


Living in a cave--a metaphor for a time of

difficulty and struggle--
aptly describes what it's like for us when

things don't work the way we thought they would.

No matter how we get there,
the cave of failure is a hard place to be.

Perhaps the hardest thing is that we often begin

to wonder whether God has lost track of us,
whether He really cares, whether He has forgotten

his promises. Yet God does some of His best work in

molding and shaping us
when we're in the cave.

Sometimes you are in a cave and no human action

is able to get you out. There is something you can't fix,
can't heal, or can't escape, and all you can do

is trust God. Finding ultimate refuge in God means

you become so immersed in His presence,

so convinced of His goodness,

so devoted to His lordship that
you find even the cave is a perfectly

safe place to be because
He is there with you." (my emphasis)

Ortberg empasizes that our ability to live in hope--to remain focused

on Christ during the storm-is largely dependent on what we feed

our minds. Ah, yes...reading the Holy Scriptures...God's Word to us.

This is obviously VERY key...but also what we choose NOT to

read/view/listen to is also VERY important, isn't it?

Young David lived in a cave, literally and figurtively.

But, in the midst of his cave dwelling David continued to trust God.

One of the greatest statements in Scripture is:

"But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God."

Ortberg says, "This is a great secret of spiritual life.

When every other resource was gone, when every prop was

kicked out from under him and every crtuch taken away,

when he reached the point of utter failure,

David encouraged himself in the Lord.

How does this happen? How do people living in the cave of failure find

the strength to venture out? What is involved in the art of receiving divine encouragement?

I believe that the starting point in dealing with failure is to honestly

face and name our discouragement. This is where David starts.

We read about this in Psalm 142, described in its superscription

as 'A Maskil of David. When he was in the cave.'

The psalm was associated with this era of David's life;

it was the cry of his heart when he felt destroyed by failure.

This is a psalm for cave dwellers."



With my voice I cry to the Lord;
with my voice I make supplication to the Lord.
I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.



"The most frequent psalm consists of someody complaining

about God. And God is apparently not put off by this at all.

This is what David does in the cave. He gets quiet enough

before the Lord to get to the bottom of his pain and

discouragement. He feels it in his gut.

However, many people (you?) never have the courage to do this.

Instead, they seek to bury their disappointment deep down inside.

They put on a stoic exterior. They force a few smiles,

but in doing so they avoid experiencing the pain inside.

One of the great gifts failure can give us is the recognition that

we are loved and valued by God precisly when we are

in the cave of failure.

As long as your sense of being valuable and significant is tied to

your success, it will be a fragile thing. But when you come to know

in the marrow of your bones that you are just as valued and loved

by God when you have fallen flat on your face,

then you are gripped by a love stronger than success or failure."

Plan B

I'm reading Anne Lamott's book "Plan B; Further Thoughts on Faith." Great book. Her first book on faith is called "Traveling Mercies."

In one chapter Lamott talks about forgiveness. She speaks about the struggles she had with her Mother and how after her death Anne was left to figure out how to forgive her mother. So, Anne left her mother in the closet for two years, in her words to "let her stew in her own ashes." She goes on to say,

"I refused to be nice to her, and didn't forgive her for being a terrified, furious, clinging, sucking maw of need and arrogance. I suppose that sounds harsh. I assumed Jesus wanted me to forgive her, but I also know He loves honesty and trasnparency. I don't think he was rolling his eyes impatiently at me while she was in the closet. I don't think much surprises Him: this is how we make important changes--barely, poorly, slowly. And still, He raises His fist in triumph." (my emphasis)

In another chapter Lamott talks about holiness:

"Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes--in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds of stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions."

In yet another chapter Lamott tells a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, 'Why on our hearts, and not in them?' The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your heart breaks, the holy words will fall inside.'"

What I learned this week...

Hello Girlfriends.

Greetings from the home office of the CFO of OMM Productions, LLC. As I sit here on my couch (!) in jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot eating a sandwich, I believe that this "owning one's own business" is not so bad. Of course, last night when I was still working at 10:00pm I was thinking, "What the heck am I doing? This is crazy!"

I leave tomorrow for Washington DC. Been hired by the Army in DC to produce a PR video. I'm there until Saturday. Then I stay over until Monday and will visit a few people at the Army's National Headquarters and schmooze a bit. For those of you who know them, I'll be staying with Stan and Leslie Melton over the weekend.

Cathy and I have recently learned a very valuable lesson about obedience. On June 25 the sermon was about "partial" obedience. The Pastor spoke about getting your house in order before God will bless you. He told a story about a land owner who had a pet monkey. Now this monkey had the run of the main house, which was fine, but he had an extremely long tail that continually knocked things over. Many of the owner's precious knick-knacks were knocked over and broken. So he told his servant to take the monkey to the barn and cut his tail off. So the servant took monkey into the barn. The land owner heard the monkey screem. But, then a few seconds later he heard it screem again. And, then a few seconds later the monkey screemed again...and again. The owner went to the barn and asked the servant, "Why is the monkey screeming so much?" The servant said, "I thought I would cut his tail off a little at a time so it wouldn't hurt as much."

Well, the lesson in that rather gross story is that partial obedience to avoid pain or hurt is not the way to go if you want God to bless your life. So, both Cathy and I each were hanging on to one thing that we each felt needed to be taken care of or put to an end instead of hanging on to it with partial obedience. It was a milestone for each of us and very tramatic and difficult to make that step...but we each did it and are confident God will bless our obedience.

C