God Refine Me

God, Refine Me  | Malachi 3:3  | Tamika Brown

Prières ordinaires translates from French as ordinary prayers. These are the prayers that do not take up a great deal of time or space but instead their greatness lies in the way they show up in our lives. They are the “small” prayers we pray when we are going about our daily living. Today’s devotional is a bit of an ordinary prayer: God, Refine Me.

Refine is defined simply as to bring to a fine or a pure state; free from impurities. During this Lenten season, it should be our goal to further refine ourselves so that we are at our best to do what God calls us to do. And, let me add right here that refining does not mean perfection! Each day that we work to become a little bit better is a day of progress.

As with anything that leads to progress, there is a process. After we have prayed our prayer to be refined, we must get prepared for the work that follows.

• Heating: the time in which that still, small voice becomes clearer and things that we have always known or done, just don’t feel right anymore. There is a new discomfort that seems to spring up from nowhere.
  
  
• Separation: the time in which our spirits are stirred and like apple cider vinegar, the “good stuff” separates from the liquid and settles together
  
  
• Cracking: the time in which our old ways, habits, and behaviors begin to shatter
  
  
• Reshaping: the time at which we begin to become a new thing; we begin to do a new thing
  
  
• Treatment: the time at which we take care of what we have become; we study, we pray, we fellowship. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17)

As we go together on this Lenten journey, we go forward knowing that some stages of the process are painful or uncomfortable, we should want to be refined. “God, refine me”, an ordinary prayer with extraordinary results.

Prayer: God, grant us the courage to prayer an ordinary prayer even when we know there is a process that follows. Grant us the strength to ensure so that we go out as your hands and feet. In Jesus’ name. Amen.