Slag.
Slag is "stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore" (dictionary.com).
I love slag. I used to treasure hunt it in the backyard by our old railroad track. Often it is holey and gray - a minimal remainder of what was taken out of it. Once in awhile though we'd find a really good piece that was a beautiful green or light blue.
Blue slag
Lately, slag has really been brought to my attention - from people finding it around the house and to me wearing my slag necklace and getting questions and compliments about it.
I keep thinking about the process of refinement. Iron ore is refined by going through heat.
The Bible mentions refinement in several places, but 1 Peter 1:6-8 really stuck out to me when I was looking through them.
"You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith - more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. You love Him, though you have not seen Him. And though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy."
I know in my life, I look at various struggles with an attitude of complaining. It sucks to go through things sometimes. Like slag being left behind when making iron, when I look back, I see trails of God's faithfulness. I see reminders of what He was doing in me and blessing me with even when the process wasn't finished yet.
Growing up essentially as a pastor's kid and grandkid, and being the eldest, I had to go through refinement time. For so long, I had been told what was right, what to believe, everything. When I got into my teens and early twenties I had to really take beliefs/ideaology/religious practices that I had been taught and pray about them, and come to my own conclusions as I made my faith my own.
It was a process. It was painful at times as I felt pressure from so many places. It was a wrestling and questioning time. But God constantly reminded me, "I created these things, I can handle your questioning." A lot of this particular process happened when I felt lonely. Looking back, even though the loneliness was difficult, my "slag" was that I learned qualities that made me a better friend. My purified iron result was that I drew closer to God and solidified my spiritual foundations.
Growing up essentially as a pastor's kid and grandkid, and being the eldest, I had to go through refinement time. For so long, I had been told what was right, what to believe, everything. When I got into my teens and early twenties I had to really take beliefs/ideaology/religious practices that I had been taught and pray about them, and come to my own conclusions as I made my faith my own.
It was a process. It was painful at times as I felt pressure from so many places. It was a wrestling and questioning time. But God constantly reminded me, "I created these things, I can handle your questioning." A lot of this particular process happened when I felt lonely. Looking back, even though the loneliness was difficult, my "slag" was that I learned qualities that made me a better friend. My purified iron result was that I drew closer to God and solidified my spiritual foundations.
Identify areas in your life that are in the process of being refined. What is "slag" that you are finding as reminders throughout the heated process? If you are through the refining in an area, what is the iron lesson or core foundation that has been purified?
"But the Lord selected you and brought you out of Egypt's iron furnace to be a people for His inheritance, as you are today." - Deuteronomy 4:20
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