Get Fired Up

I

n the spring of 1988, I visited a small town in the south of France known as Biot.  This small village is located near the French Riviera and is known for its glassware.  The glass is hand-blown and the artisans create everything from vases, to bowls, to glasses.  The amazing feature of Biot glass are the bubbles suspended in it.  This hallmark sets the glass apart from other forms of hand-blown glass found in different regions of the world.

The day I visited the glass shop, there were tourists everywhere.  People were buying all types of glassware for souvenirs or for gifts to give to loved ones and family back home.  At one end of the workshop, a large crowd was watching as one of the artists fashioned a large water pitcher.  As the people watched him fashion this glowing ball into a lovely piece of blue glass, no one spoke.  Instead, everyone watched in utter amazement as this mixture of different sands and heat became something new and beautiful.

As I watched this process, the words of Romans 8:29 came to mind.  In this letter, Paul says that the Christian is "being conformed to the image of Christ."  The glowing mass at the end of the iron rod was destined to become a pitcher, but it took a great deal of work on the artist's part to fashion it.  The most important element in the process was air provided by the glassblower.  At different times he would blow air in to the mixture causing it to expand.  He would then work with the glass and then blow more air in.  This air would form the bubbles that made the glass famous.   A part of the artist was visible, for all time, in the pattern of the glass.

Next, he took tongs and stretched and smoothed, and pulled and gouged until he formed the handle and the spout of the pitcher.  He also rolled the glass on a hard surface and used a blunt rod to shape the pitcher into a cylinder to hold liquid.  Every time he changed the shape of any portion of the glass, he consigned it to the fire so it would be malleable in his hand.  Finally, he placed it in the fire to burn off any impurities and then he separated it from the hollow rod and placed it on a shelf to cool, harden, and become a pitcher to grace someone's table.

This is the same process God uses to conform us to the image of Christ.  Like the glassblower, He knows what we are capable of becoming.  As the glassblower placed his breath into the glass, so God places Himself within us.  There is an unmistakable and permanent mark on God's children that makes them uniquely His.  In order to shape us into Christ's' image, God has to pull, stretch, gouge, and smooth us until we take on the exact likeness of Christ.  When there are areas that need special attention and when impurities need to be removed, He places us in the fire.  But we are never there for an instant longer than is necessary.  Finally, He removes us from the fire and places us on the shelf of life where we become His instruments, ready to grace the lives of others with the love and witness he has placed within us.  There is no greater joy than being used for the purpose for which we were made.

My prayer for you today is that you will not fight this process.  God knows what you are able to become.  His only desire is to remove all impurities from you and to mold and shape you into the exact image of Christ.  The refiner’s fire is reserved only for those whom God intends to use for His purpose.  He consigns us to the fire, and the gouging, and the stretching, because He trusts us and because He knows that without this process we can NEVER achieve the ultimate goal He has for us: to be like Christ!!  What a reason to get fired up!