By M. Liz Boyle
If you’ve been reading my articles, you know that I love God, adventure, and good books. The past months I’ve shared with you excerpts from my first two books,
Avalanche and
Chased. It may not surprise you that after sending my five teenage characters through an avalanche and then a flash flood, I chose to subject them to a wildfire in the finale of the series. First snow and ice, then raging waters and a raging treasure hunter, and now onto a forest fire. Why fire? Obviously a wildfire is a high excitement natural disaster, so the energy of a blazing forest fits right in with my series. In addition to being the most obvious next disaster to face, I like the character refinement that goes with fire.
In several passages, the Bible talks about precious metals, symbolic of people, being refined in fire. Refiners’ fires get rid of the impurities, the low quality junk. While the precious metal can endure the high heat, the dross floats up and is whisked away. If the dross is not removed, the metal cannot be used. It would be weak, of low value, and a very long way from a piece of jewelry or usable vessel. God knows that like impure metals, we need a lot of refining to reflect His image. The refiners’ fire, in the form of challenges and trials in life, bring to light our human nature and sinful habits. We need to skim off the spiritual dross.
Maybe you can lo ...
