~Midori Uematsu

One day, I decided to heat my favourite sweet danish to make it even more delicious. As it was toasting, I did a few chores and noticed a burning smell. “Oh, no!”, by the time I ran to the toaster oven, the top (and most tasty) part of my danish was burnt!  I deeply regretted not watching over it. So, the next time I used the toaster oven for the same purpose, I remained in front of it and watched closely. I realized that it only takes a few seconds to go from perfectly toasted to burned up. 

This reminded me of a testimony I heard about how precious silver is refined. The silversmith will pace around the heated silver for a while until he sits directly in front of it and watches closely so that the silver is pulled from the fire, just in time. After contemplating this, a verse came to my heart more vividly:

He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; Malachi 3:3  
God is our Silversmith. He is sitting and watching us closely. He will never allow us to be in the fiery furnace for a second longer than He wills. He purposes to refine us, not to destroy us.