A bar of steel worth five dollars, when wrought into horseshoes, is worth ten dollars. If made into needles, it is worth three hundred and fifty dollars; if into penknife blades, it is worth thirty-two thousand dollars; if into springs for watches it is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What a drilling the poor bar must undergo to be worth this! But the more it is manipulated, the more it is hammered, and passed through the fire, and beaten and pounded and polished, the greater the value. May this parable help us to be silent, still and long-suffering. Those who suffer most are capable of yielding most; and it is through pain that God is getting the most out of us, for His glory and the blessing of others.

"I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument..." Isaiah 41:15

Yes, it's amazing the value that can come to an object through the tools of a master workman, and through the process of refinement. And what more can God do with our human hearts yielded to His hands and to His will?

"But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he [is] like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness." Malachi 3:2-3

Here is encaptured the whole essence and beauty of the refining process...an OFFERING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS!!! No, it's not pleasant to be "in the fire." It is not pleasant to have the impurities beat out of ones heart and life...but it's for a grander purpose and end.

When struggling over different circumstances that God has allowed into my life, I love this quote in Ministry of Healing:

"The fact that we are called upon to endure trial shows that the Lord Jesus sees in us something precious which He desires to develop. If He saw in us nothing whereby He might glorify His name, He would not spend time in refining us. He does not cast worthless stones into His furnace. It is only valuable ore that He refines." MH pg 471

So if God is working some great refining process in your life, if you have some great testing trial or pain, remember that it is because He considers you to be VALUABLE and WORTH the process and you will have a beautiful offering of righteousness to give as a result.