The Pure in Heart

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Matthew 5:8


I remember driving by Kohl’s after Phil had had his surgery, on my way home from the hospital, thinking how insignificant and trivial shopping was after I had placed so much emphasis on it prior to Phil’s heart attack. Sickness just has a way of waking us up out of our sleep, I guess. It has a way of melting away the layers that obscure our vision of what’s really important. Maybe, other than I had prayed for it to happen, that’s why I put so little emphasis on shopping now; it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

One definition of pure in heart is “free from the admixture or adhesion of anything that soils, adulterates, and corrupts.” Another is “purified by fire.” Please let me remind you of the analogy of the refiner’s fire.

“It is his job to melt down raw gold and turn it into a marketable product. The refiner would endure severe heat as he would painstakingly stir the melted ore. Well, every so often he would scrape off a dirty-looking film that had collected at the top. Upon the removal of that film, a beautiful golden glow would appear, seemingly perfect. But the refiner was not satisfied. He turned up the heat and kept stirring and skimming, stirring and skimming. When asked by an impatient bystander when the gold would be refined enough, he said, ‘It will only be ready when I can see my face reflecting back in the gold. Then the work will be complete.'" [http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Gateway-to-Joy/Adversity.html]

Even though Phil’s surgery had been painful for him, it was God’s way of refining us both in the fiery furnace of affliction – a pain that was worth it for both of us. The day before his heart attack I had prayed for God to slow him down and get his attention. And he did.

Yesterday my daughter and I crossed paths at Wal Mart while she was renting the movie The Hurt Locker and I was buying the ingredients for zucchini bread. I asked her if she wanted to come over and watch me eat my salad I had just bought at Panera Bread and then watch me make the zucchini bread while we talked. So she did. After she had already asked me if I wanted to see the movie and I had said “no,” I told her to go ahead and watch it by herself in the den while I made the zucchini bread in the kitchen which are basically one and the same room. I paid very little attention to what was going on until almost the very end of the movie when I finally had a chance to sit down. This was the quietest part of the movie and the part I was meant to hear. Here is Staff Sergeant William James exact quote to his baby son:

“You love playing with that.”

“You love playing with all your stuffed animals.”

“You love your Mommy, your Daddy.”

“You love your nature pajamas."

“You love everything, don’t you? Yeah.”

“But you know what, buddy?”

“As you get older…some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore."

“Like your Jack-in-a-box."

“Maybe you’ll realize it’s just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal.”

“And the older you get, the fewer things you really love.”

“And by the time you get to my age, maybe it’s only one or two things.”

“With me, I think it’s one.”

And in the next scene we hear the words, “Welcome to Delta Company, Sergeant.”

“God’s work of refining and purifying the soul must go on until his servants are so humbled, so dead to self, that when called into active service, they may have an eye single to the glory of God. Then they will not move rashly from impulse, and imperil the Lord’s cause because they are slaves to temptation and passion, because they follow their carnal desires; but they will move from principle and in view of the glory of God.” [Refiner’s Fire – Sermon Notes by Pastor John Grosball]

Job replied to the Lord after years of the Lord’s tests and Satan’s temptations: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

What happened to Job and what happened to me after Phil’s heart attack was a part of the purification process God controlled the entire time. Just like the man in The Hurt Locker God intends me to come through adversity with one goal in mind – to be a better soldier – to glorify Him.

“See I have refined you, though not as silver. I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake I do this.” Isaiah tells us; for his sake he refines us. Purification is painful, so painful, but a necessary ingredient in the Christian’s life. It’s the method whereby God says “I love you. I choose you to cast my reflection upon others.” For HIS sake he allows the purification process and blesses the pure in heart who see HIM through it.