I've taken this straight from google AI:
In the Bible, a "crucible" (Hebrew: matsreph)refers to a vessel used to heat metals to high temperatures for purification, a literal process from which the word's metaphoric meaning derives. The biblical usage portrays a severe test or trial, often involving hardship and pain, through which God tests and purifies the character of His servants, similar to how impurities are burned away from precious metals.
I felt compelled to get real and to write about the crucible of my life while I was watching part of the BSSM (Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry) 3rd year orientation meetings online.
One of the big reasons I decided to do the 3rd and final year, albeit off campus, was because of the connection with Bethel and their leaders. I know by faith I can receive through divine impartation as much or more here in Texas as anyone there in California.
In one of the session replays, our 3rd year overseer started to call groups of people out to receive prayer.
Those who had a tough summer; (didn't turn out as they'd hoped).
Those who perhaps felt weary or disqualified.
Those who didn't think they had anything to give.
I kept replying YES in my soul to all of them and realized the poor condition of thinking and believing I've been in actually for quite some time.
The leader began to pray to break agreements with demonic lies, and for no more striving for things with our effort that were meant to be given only in grace and surrender by Holy Spirit.
I said YES to all of it.
'Please God touch me like I would have been in the room. I long to receive all that you have for me today'.
It brought me to this place of pondering the things in my life that have brought me to this point. I thought of the one crucible that is the totality of my life up to this point - and the myriad of smaller or ancillary crucibles within that one big reality that have happened along the journey.
I genuinely think I could only be doing this for personal therapy and release. So welcome to my head space for a bit.
Perhaps there is more to it, and that I just have to release to God - this being a blog the design is to share publicly to whomever chooses to read it.
There are many things in my life that I would describe as being a type of crucible for me - in other words things that have put me under extreme heart, pressure, 'melting', purification (even if I didn't know it at the time), caused tremendous pain/hardship.
The first and earliest would be the toxic culture in my home from my earliest memories. It was brutal, but at the time I didn't actually know how bad because I had nothing to compare with. It was just my normal. Awful, but normal. Zero affirmation with words, zero physical affection, zero encouragement or empowerment. Shame, pain, anger, criticism, put-downs, arguing, ignoring and rejection were in that crucible.
I know for a fact that if God's hand was not on my life back then I wouldn't be here talking about a crucible, but about a casket I was being fitted for.
I didn't have a chance when I was a kid.
I had so much taken from me, and all I could do was try to survive it and find escape from the pain.
This was a theme that would play out in my life for over 3 decades.
A very bad, co-dependent relationship with my first wife which was actually immoral and very dysfunctional was another crucible I found myself in, starting in my late teens.
Little did I know just how much more pain was in store for me and those who knew me.
It did end bitterly in a divorce after 15 years of a slow 'bleed' or deterioration.
It was in those years from about age 17 and through the decade of my 20's and into my early 30's that I became a stone monument to bitterness, pain and anger. These were my tools of building my life - AND - my weapons of protection against a world I had no answer for, which I believed had nothing for me unless I took it by my own strength.
I was an atheist with an orphan spirit and a belief in no God except my self as the god of my life. The master of my fate, and captain of my soul as the poem Invictus would put it.
Losing jobs, being convicted of a crime I didn't commit - these were also crucibles that came at me one after the other in a seemingly endless repeating pattern of pain and hardship.
Broken people often only know how to steward broken relationships. My life is littered with them.
I could write a whole book on who to blame and how, and give 100 excuses for how things turned out and why I deserved better, and how much the world owes me and how deserving of wrath are those who wronged me and betrayed me.
And you know what?
If I go down that path, which has been well worn in my life, it is an unredeemed pit with no life in it which in the end would only glorify the "ruler of this age, the prince of the power of the air whose spirit is now at work in the sons of disobedience", among whom I once lived... - (see Ephesians 2).
Each and every horrible circumstance in my life, either done to me or brought upon me by my own sin and poor choices has taken from me and never given anything in return but more of the same.
Until.
12 years ago, God met me in my rebellion and sin and weakness and anger and bitterness.
God interrupted my downfall and forever changed my eternal destination.
Holy Spirit apprehended me with love, conviction of sin, and conviction to righteousness.
I'm forever changed, and therefore so is my past.
You see, when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He paid the price for sin that none of us could ever pay.
Not only that, He imputed to us His perfect sinless life and His perfect right standing with Father God.
That means, every bad thing that ever happened to me that was in effect a coffin waiting to bury me - or at the very least another nail in that coffin unto eternal death - was forever redeemed and remade into crucible, after crucible, after crucible.
The broken, messed up, non-existent love relationship with my parents is being healed and transformed to this very day. Jesus supernaturally healed me of the bitterness and hatred against my parents. I can only say I LOVE YOU with truth to them now because Jesus has made it possible.
Those words for them simply didn't exist in my anymore until the resurrection power of Jesus hit me.
The bitterness, pain and anguish from my first marriage relationship and my divorce was healed in me because of the love given to me unconditionally by Jesus.
The very sad day last July when I was sent the news in a FB message that my ex-wife had died in her home at the age of 65 caused me a different kind of pain than what I had experienced with my ex-wife before.
No longer was it resentment and pain because of her - but I instantly felt sadness and pain for her. I felt compassion for the life she didn't have; utter longing for her to have known Jesus as her Savior before she died - as I knew that in her life with me God and Jesus were curse words. I don't know where she is now, but all I can feel is a desire for her to be in His arms now.
That was not me before March of 2013.
The wrongful conviction for a crime I didn't commit - the broken promises, the betrayals from people I cared about - they are all now crucibles that are strengthening me (if I let them), and fashioning me into the man of God who looks more and more like Jesus every day.
And NONE of it is because of my works. ALL of it is because of Him. My assignment was to surrender.
I want to finish today's message with what is on my heart more so today. I have grown weary in this life.
I feel overwhelmed sometimes by the sheer volume of challenges I have faced and continue to face.
I feel unable to be the person I want my family to see and know.
I have great faith and hope in certain areas, and in others I have very little. I have allowed deceptions to rob me of divine encounters for myself and others. I have allowed lies to pervade my thinking and knock me off course.
The enemy is a cut off withering branch coming to nothing, so what can he do unless I give him a hand in my life?!
Today I feel farther from my destiny than I have in a long time.
I genuinely feel tired and alone.
It is a lie from the pit of hell.
It's really good to get it out in writing, because to confront those thoughts which are not my own, and to bring them into the light means that freedom will come to me in this and that I can have more to surrender to Jesus.
My most consistent prayer these days is 'help me Jesus'.
Yeah, profound I know.
No CHRISTian is alone, ever. 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me' - Galatians 2:20.
I have to give thanks in all things, even for the crucibles in my life and that can feel like my whole life, at times.
WHY?
Because for one thing, they could have been a coffin that I was buried in forever. They also lead to Christ-likeness in me if I allow God in to all of it.
My tools in this new creation life are surrender, hope, forgiveness and above all else LOVE.
I am not a dead monument to a broken past, but a living stone grafted into eternity with Jesus as a son and a royal priest.
I'm not gonna say I will welcome the next crucible into my life with open arms, but I will say that I will make a stand and engage my will to surrender more of myself and my life to Jesus and see what He does with it.
A prayer to finish:
Jesus, take my pain and my weakness and my lack of understanding, and form me more and more into your image through your Spirit.
I repent of unbelief and walking outside of your Lordship as I have endured the crucibles of this life in my humanity, weakness and lack of faith. Thank you that I'm in your process of purification and sanctification.
Thank you that you are faithful, compassionate, loving and forever with me. In Your mighty name I pray.
