Through the Refiner's
Fire
We felt the refiner's fire again when our Sandy died in Gelhausen, Germany, the night he received his Private First Class stripe. He listened to the temptation offered by his peers to "prove you are a man and deserve that stripe," and in an incident of senseless daring he died. This happened only a year after we lost Debbie in the bus accident.
Does the untimely death of a child like our Robin, or of an early teen like our Debbie, or of a young man like our Sandy, have a divine purpose? Does any seemingly unredeemable situation really carry a purpose because God is preparing us for something greater, or is it just another event on the "being human" calendar?
Great debate material for theologians, of course, but also truly relevant to what each of us experiences. This is particularly true when we believe we have served the Lord rather faithfully. We cannot believe we deserve these extremely difficult and emotionally wrenching experiences. When Roy and I experienced crises in our lives, we faced those questions, at times
Page 180
seriously questioning what God was all about — if He really was involved.
Living a long life does not provide all the answers. Yet reflection does indicate some things the Master Potter clearly achieved in His refining process as He let us bring a Down's syndrome child into the world, let deeply loved Debbie die in a church bus accident, let Sandy die because of an irrational challenge by fellow soldiers, let Roy experience serious health problems, and put me in the hospital with a heart attack.
Gaining Permanent Value
Let's return to our analogy of the potter at work on a clay vessel for a moment. How does a clay vessel get hardened so it can be used in cooking and transporting food? What puts the glaze on that vessel so that it develops a smooth surface with an attractive sheen?
We all know it is in the hot kiln that clay pots are fired for permanence and beauty. That heat produces a chemical reaction that removes moisture and provides a bonding that turns crumbly, easily molded clay into a permanent vessel.
What if that clay pot were to insist that it bypass the intense heat of the kiln? If kept in a dry place, it might retain its shape for a while, but it would soon crumble. Yet properly fired clay produces vessels that can be dug up thousands of years later with inscriptions still clearly legible on them. The heat of the kiln gave them permanence.
Similarly, the refiner's fire is the Master Potter's process for purifying the Christian for more effective service at home, in the church and community, and beyond.
Page 181
I have never found the purifying process pleasant, but I have learned that the Master Potter knows what He is about.
Although it is not always the case, I find that, as with clay vessels, we experience the purifying, hardening fire after the Master Potter has done His major reshaping in our lives. At the time, we consider those shaping experiences the refining fire, and in some ways they are, but we are not ready for the true refining fire until He has effected His major shaping in us.
The Purpose of Trials
What is the refining process all about? Here's how James puts it in his letter:
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 mature and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)
When Art Rush came onto the set at Seattle to inform us that the network wanted us to cut out the name of Christ in our God and country song, "How Great Thou Art," we knew this was a trial. Much more was at stake than just pulling out one name in a song. This was an attempt to quickly destroy our attempt at a Christian witness, despite the network's promise that we could do whatever we wanted on the show. But we also knew that if we insisted on keeping our witness songs on the program, there was very little likelihood of our contracts being renewed.
Page 182
The temptation was to give in so we could stay on the air and put bread on the table.
Saying no quickly to the network's request, and then seeing God provide for us in other ways, strengthened us. It hardened our resolve to always have a witness in our shows, no matter where we were. And it prepared us for the request of the manager of Madison Square Garden that we remove the cross from the set while we sang, "Peace in the Valley." Roy and I did not have to think twice about it.
Too Great a Price?
We paid the price for our witness to Christ. Yet we did not consider that too great a price, for we considered the price Jesus Christ paid for our salvation much greater. I knew how I had felt before I gave my life to Christ, and how restless I had been inside. It seemed as if I was always not doing what I should do, and doing what I shouldn't do. But when the Master Potter gave me peace and began shaping me, that restlessness disappeared and I experienced true inner peace.
You may be thinking that you cannot really relate to that, since your life is not in the public eye as ours was. The fact is that all of us face trials if we are living for the Lord. We go through experiences that don't make any sense to us until years after we have been through them. My son, Tom, went through one of those truly mortifying and humiliating experiences that, on the surface, should never have happened.
Tom taught music in the public school system for twenty-six years when a teacher's strike over issues he did not agree with prompted him to leave teaching.
Page 183
He became the Minister of Music at Arcade Baptist Church in Sacramento. After providing twelve years of outstanding leadership in music there, he determined that he had about three good years left of full-time service. He and Barbara agreed he should spend it back in the classroom that had given him so many good years. It would also increase his pension benefits as a bonus.
Our foster daughter, Marion, worked as executive-secretary to the superintendent of the Palmdale school district, and she helped find him a position in the district. After a tearful farewell, with many requests to change their minds, Tom and Barbara moved all of their household goods 450 miles south to Palmdale.
Nothing, however, went right for Tom and Barbara in housing and other aspects of living and working in the Palmdale area. Tom says, "We soon developed roadblocks of doubt that we had moved out of the will of God. For two weeks we had a heart-rending experience of praying that God would make His will clear to us. We concluded we had acted on our personal wills, not in keeping with the will of God. The people of Arcade Baptist made it clear that we would be welcome to return to our previous church positions, I as Minister of Music and Barbara as senior organist."
The members of Arcade came down and moved all of their furniture back and restored them to their former positions. Yet it was a most embarrassing, even humiliating, experience for someone who had served the Lord so many years. Tom also felt great remorse for having let Marion down. And both felt they had let a lot of friends down at Arcade because they had not really understood the will of God.
Page 184
Trials Develop Understanding
The Master Potter was clearly using that as part of the refining process, however, for when they retired after three years the opportunity at Black Forest Academy in Germany opened up. Then he could use his gifts to teach music in an international Christian school, serving the educational needs of missionaries' kids from thirty-one countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. These kids had also experienced a lot of disappointments. Tom and Barbara could serve them out of genuine humility, recognizing their own fallibility as Christians.
Such humiliation is part of the Master Potter's shaping process to create dependence upon Him. In an earlier chapter we touched on the failure of the apostle Peter, the marring of his testimony, when he denied his Lord three times in the courtyard of the high priest. Let's go back in time to the day the Master Potter saw two boats standing on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, with the fishermen busy mending their nets nearby.
Jesus had already developed a significant following, for a "multitude" of people was pressing in on Him to hear Him speak. No doubt Peter, James, and John had already heard of Jesus. In fact, they may already have personally heard and believed His words. But they had to keep bread on the table for their families, so they had gone fishing. Unfortunately, the previous night they had caught nothing,
Page 185
a most unusual experience for these veteran fishermen.
Peter in the Spotlight
When Jesus approached, not even Peter knew what the Master had in mind. But he was glad to offer his boat when Jesus asked if He could use it as a pulpit. With the water acting like a megaphone, Jesus could easily speak to a large crowd.
This was tremendous exposure. After all, how often can you get a "multitude" focusing on your fishing enterprise? Clearly, this was great advertising.
Then Jesus turned Peter's world upside down. After addressing the multitude, Jesus asked Peter to "launch out into the deep" (Luke 5:4) and let down the net to catch some fish. It was all fine and good for Jesus to ask for his boat as a pulpit, but to request they resume fishing in broad daylight, in front of the crowd, clearly overstepped the bounds of propriety. After all, Peter was the fisherman, and he and his associates had fruitlessly fished all night — and everyone knew fish were difficult to catch when the sun came out.
Peter's loss of control over the situation could prove most embarrassing if they put out the nets and caught nothing. The Master wouldn't catch the flak; the crowd had probably not heard Him give the command to Peter, and would blame Peter. The last thing Peter needed was a display of ineptitude.
Page 186
Yet Peter had also developed a genuine faith in this remarkable teacher. So he said: "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net" (Luke 5:5).
Overwhelming Bounty
Peter moved from independence to dependence, the "at Your word, Lord" stage that all of us must reach before the Master Potter finds us a vessel unto honor. Peter pushed off into the deeper water and let down the net, while the crowd wondered what in the world was going on. I suspect Peter was also skeptical that anything would develop. When they started pulling up the nets, however, they were bulging with fish. In fact, the nets were overwhelmed and started tearing. So Peter and his associates signaled for help, and the men in the other boat came out to help them bring a huge catch on board.
Under normal circumstances, I suspect, Peter may have done some strutting. After all, the whole crowd had watched this unbelievable scene as nets full of flopping and struggling fish were hauled in over the edge of the boats. Today's TV news cameras would have had a field day. Yet the Master Potter had gotten through to Peter at a very deep level. He had put the fire to this self-sufficient, cocky fisherman and out came, at least for the moment, a humble, contrite person who fell down on his knees at Jesus's feet and said: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" (Luke 5:8).
Jesus knew that Peter had gone through the first stage of refinement, necessary to make him a disciple. Other experiences would continue the refinement with the denial the final "firing" of the human clay
Page 187
that was Peter so he could move from disciple to apostle.
The Scriptures record only one more incident that casts Peter in a negative light. He chooses to side with his Jewish friends against the Gentiles at Antioch, and the apostle Paul had to confront him publicly about his anti-Gentile attitude. Apparently Peter took it to heart, for Paul doesn't mention it further.
An Honor Withdrawn
I got into one of those situations where the Master Potter put the fire to my pride. The year I was chosen "Mother of the Year" in California, I went to New York for the annual convention of the sponsoring organization. There I was nominated for "National Mother of the Year," a tremendous honor. No doubt our multinational family contributed to my receiving the awards. The night before the final award ceremony I was asked to give my testimony. Unaware of the furor it would cause, I told about my divorces.
The sponsors quickly informed me that they would have to withdraw my name from nomination for "National Mother of the Year." They had an absolute rule that no divorced woman, no matter how great she subsequently became as a mother, could be National Mother of the Year.
For me, this was a tremendous emotional setback — and a most humbling experience. Yet I was so grateful they had acted immediately when they discovered my divorces, because they were right. Our country is so desperately in need of stable homes. I won't even accept a position as deaconess in the church because of my divorces. That doesn't stop my
Page 188
witness, but I believe I'm disqualified from a form of service in which the participants are to be role models in the local church.
Establishing Purpose and Focus
Going through the Master Potter's refining fire has a way of helping us establish purpose and focus for our life. When Robin died and my book Angel Unaware was published, the Lord gave me an extraordinary opportunity to witness His sustaining grace during times of great trial. Without that, I would have been just another entertainer alongside my husband. But I was able to get Down's syndrome children out of the closet, to get their parents the help they needed. As time went on, I discovered this spilled over to all disabled children of whom the public was ashamed.
When Debbie was killed in a bus accident, we went through shock and intense grief. Earlier I shared how I doubted God's goodness for a brief period — and how Roy struggled with what he considered a senseless death. But again the Lord opened a door for a new level of witness, this time to parents who had lost a child in a similar way.
Sandy's death in Germany could have totally devastated us, since it again was a needless death. The Master Potter had prepared us for this refinement by having Sandy write us a letter, which we received a week before his death. In it he expressed his commitment to the Savior and to establishing a Christian home with the young woman to whom he was engaged. This became another kind of witness to our total dependence on God for life and breath — and His sustaining presence in the midst of trial.
Page 189
Books on Debbie and Sandy helped to spread the message to people I could not reach through personal appearances.
You get right down to the nitty gritty when you are humiliated, as I was in the "National Mother of the Year" incident. You get down to what counts, where you can express something because you have been through it. You've been on the Master Potter's wheel and in the refining fire.
The difference in the "before" and "after" parts of the refiner's fire is seen in an experience I had with Art Linkletter. After I wrote Angel Unaware, Art had me as a guest on his program. The purpose was to talk about the book, for it was making quite a splash. On the program, Art asked me, "Tell me what made you write this book" (a rather standard question for interviewers of authors). I took the opportunity to tell him and the audience about giving my life to Christ, how His presence in my life had sustained me during the trauma of losing Robin after having her with us for two years. Then I shared how God had helped me up after her death. Art was taken aback, for he had not expected this clear a witness.
Since experiencing trials through his own children, Art has supported Christian efforts to deal with drugs and other family problems. However, he no longer has his own program; it's funny how show business will finally ease you out once you fall in love with Jesus Christ.
It seems I had suffered enough after the death of three children to reach a stage where the Lord simply wanted to use me for some years. No significant trauma struck our family while I criss-crossed the country sharing what the Master Potter is all about in
Page 190
our lives. I got the feeling that maybe we were home free, when Roy ended up in the hospital again.
In 1978, Roy had triple by-pass heart surgery, just ahead of what could have been a severe heart attack. The Lord used this to teach me another level of patience, to "let go and let God handle it," especially since I was scheduled to host a tour of five pastors and a huge crowd of Christians to Israel not long after his surgery. But the Lord had Roy home before I had to leave.
In 1990, Roy suffered another setback; this time he had to have surgery on a large aneurysm on his aorta. This was a most difficult experience, especially since the surgeon informed me the night before the surgery that Roy might not make it through the surgery. Our pastor, Bill Hansen, prayed with Roy and me before the operation. At that point Roy calmly said, "Whatever the Lord wills, I am ready. I am not afraid."
While recovering, Roy developed the flu, which progressed into pneumonia. That was a hard trial indeed, but the Master Potter delivered him from that as well.
The Master Potter refocused my attention when in May 1992, He let me experience a violent heart attack. I was in excruciating pain in the hospital. Having a baby was child's play compared to the pain I was experiencing. I said to the Lord, "Are You there? Lord, are You there? Get me out of here. If You are going to take me, take me now. I cannot make it anymore."
Suddenly I said to the Master Potter, "Was this the way it was with You on the cross? Did You suffer like this?" Then I said, "You did not do anything to deserve Your pain. Forgive me for saying, 'Get me out of here.' "
Page 191
By that time the nurses had inserted needles in me all over, and I lost consciousness for a time. The next day my lungs filled up, and I could not breathe. They ran tests and discovered that a valve had been damaged badly and was letting blood get back into my lungs. Only when they went in again and put a steel ring into place to stop the valve from malfunctioning did my lungs begin to clear.
Through all of these refining experiences I have learned to withdraw into myself, into the small, quiet center of my being, in complete trust in God. There I simply "wait upon the Lord," trusting Him to work out events in His faultless timing. Neither Roy nor I can say we are really healthy anymore, but we are determined to serve our Lord as long as He permits.
Each of us has personal refining fire experiences. The Master Potter knows exactly how high to turn up the fire. That's why the apostle Paul could write:
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. (1 Cor. 10:13)
What is the purpose of the refining fire? There are many, but the ultimate purpose on earth seems to be to make us fit to be on display to the world. Scary thought? Let's examine that idea in the next chapter.
Page 192
Reflecting on the Shaping
1. What adds permanence and luster to a piece of clay pottery?
2. Which experience would you identify as being used by the Master Potter to refine you?
3. What is the purpose of the refining fire according to James 1:2-4?
4. What might have been the purpose for the humiliation Tom and Barbara experienced when they moved to Palmdale?
5. What can we learn from Peter's experience with Jesus to help us in frustrating, humiliating situations?
