Scripture

Micah 3:1-4

"I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the Lord Almighty.

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

Psalm 66:8-12

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

In the Refining Fire of the Master Blacksmith

by Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts

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Sometimes I hear the phrase, "everything happens for a reason" or worse, "it's all part of God's plan," and I can't help but cringe. "Everything" is part of God's plan? Even horror and abuse, all the hellish states we humans can convey? However, it's hard to completely dismiss these statements when you both believe in God(dess) and are willing to see some of the horrific realities of our world.

The key question here is why would God allow so much evil? In religious settings, I often hear in response to the question of evil and why we have temptations to do evil that it's a mystery. But as we've explored previously, it seems as though we can do evil because Divinity enables our freedom to be human, our freedom to turn away from acknowledging and embodying Our Source in our intent, faith, and act. This is what the 18th century scientist-turned-Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg believed.

Mystics like Swedenborg say that without this creation's ability to destroy and deconstruct, humanity, life, and matter couldn't exist as seemingly separate from God. Without freedom we would just be automatons led by her, and ultimately there would be no life at all. Personally, I think we see bounded freedom embodied in everything from quantum physics to our own ability to evolve and transform, and so, as Swedenborg believed, without freewill nothing in the universe could exist.

Moreover, scripture paints a picture of us as in a refiner's fire, in God's refining fire, especially when we allow the Holy Refiner to mold us. And I think this points to another use of the evil and disorder in the universe, it helps to build us up and to refine us. Indeed, Swedenborg believed that no evil could exist if it wouldn't eventually be used for some good, beyond just the need for spiritual freedom. We can feel this in our own lives, to an extent, and we can see how learning from mistakes and overcoming temptation helps us to find higher ways of being. As we learn and grow, overcome and "turn/repent" (as Jesus put it), we find a greater place of peace, love and insight.

Given our finite nature, the existence of light and shadow helps us to see, learn, and grow. Like a sprouting plant, we cannot take on the full extent of the sun, but receive light filtered to our needs and encounter obstacles that help us become strong.

Some obstacles, of course, cause us to seemingly perish. Which is hard to fathom given the existence of a loving, caring, all-knowing and all-powerful God. But again, as we gain a larger lens and take in more light, we might see that death isn't the end it's cracked up to be, and even spiritual decay only subsists to the extent that we don't allow God's light and warmth to shine.

Like within a fire, God uses the dynamics, the heat and light of our lives, to mold us. And wow, doesn't life often feel like such a fire? However, I think we can learn something from scripture's repeated analogy of refinement - the metal that lasts, that is shapeable and resilient, is the metal that has stability and a type of peace even within the flames and the blows. We each have a core strength that can become even more pervasive if we allow it to and encourage it with healthy habits and mindsets.

Further, this is what God wants! For us to become refined and empowered. The purpose of a blacksmiths forge is to build something greater, to remove impurities and to add value - as the scriptures say, to refine silver and gold. Although God can use hurtful circumstances for our growth or sustainment, God's true fire is one of infinite Divine Love for us, meant only to uplift and empower us.

It's interesting to think of God as a blacksmith-refiner in this way. A master blacksmith has all of his tools well-handled and tempered to what will work best. Similarly, God knows us and the situations we find ourselves in better than a blacksmith knows metal, and we can allow the "fire" and "water" of the Divine Blacksmith to temper and shape us toward something greater, toward peace and inner strength.

As we contend with the flame of life, the parts of us that react with volatility are the parts that we may think about exploring closer while allowing their impurities to be released. These are the hurtful, angry, lustful, shameful, or untrusting parts of ourselves that we should fully engage with, try to understand, and truly feel and heal. We tend to carry traumas and distancing from some of our emotions due to hard events in our past, but if we allow the Blacksmith to, God will help us to embrace ourselves and to realize that we are safe and loved even so.

God encourages us to accept the forge for what it is, and to allow him to start to heal the hurt, the anger, and the pain of our histories. Indeed, to allow these flames of history to help make us more than what we were before. In a way, the more we can engage and accept the flame of our experiences with God's empowerment instead of shrinking from them, the more strength we exhibit to allow the Blacksmith to shape our spirits (our affections, intentions, and thoughts) and make us whole.

There have been a lot of experiences in my life that seem like this in retrospect. As a child I spent a lot of time in hard situations, as well as forced to listen to religious and paranoid lectures, which I despised and distanced myself from. This and other aspects of my life led me to a place where I had no faith in anything or almost anyone.

However, as I've grown and turned toward reengaging these situations, the more I've gotten out of them in a positive light. Indeed, as many of us will attest with our own difficulties, without them I wouldn't be who I am today and would never change what I went through.

We're told that Divine Love is as a fire, burning infinitely for us and spreading spiritual light and heat for all of our benefit. Indeed, we're told by scripture and Swedenborg that this fire crafts and uses every situation to uplift or maintain our spiritual health as much as it can, knowing when we or others will make poor decisions and doing its best even so to keep us from digging further into our dominating and hurtful (i.e. hellish) states. In a way, we spend our lives surrounded by the loving tools and fire of the Master Blacksmith, and instead of getting caught up in our flaws, judgments, and temptations that sizzle in the flame, we can choose to promote and center on the silver and gold within, allowing ourselves to be transformed in a place that brings us peace, love, and growth, no matter what flames may come.

Amen.

Blessings,

Rev. Cory