The Refiner's Reflection

For thousands of years, silversmiths have refined their metal the same way. They place rough ore into a crucible and hold it over coals until the temperature climbs past 1,700 degrees. At that heat, the impurities — sulfur, lead, copper — rise to the surface as dark scum called dross. The smith skims it away with a rod. Then he waits. And watches.

You know how a silversmith knows when the refining is complete? He leans over the crucible and looks into the molten metal. When he can see his own face clearly reflected — undistorted, bright, unobscured — he knows the work is done. The silver is pure.

Isaiah walked into the temple, and suddenly he was the ore in the crucible. The seraphim's cry — "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" — was the heat, the searing radiance of a God of absolute purity. Every impurity in Isaiah rose to the surface at once. "Woe is me! I am ruined!" The dross of a human soul does not hide well in the presence of the Most High.

But then came the coal from the altar — the same fire that revealed his uncleanness now purified it. "Your guilt is taken away. Your sin is atoned for."

The Almighty was not finished destroying Isaiah. He was refining him — until Isaiah was clean enough, and clear enough, to say: "Here am I. Send me."