God's Love Refines Me

Isaiah 5:1-2
"I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines."

Ezekiel 36:26
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

Micah 7:19
"You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities
into the depths of the sea."

2 Corinthians 5:17
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come;
The old has gone, the new is here!"

Response:

God's love refines me.
His love penetrates my life, it splits open my heart.
It takes over like a tornado hovering over me.
It rips up the fruitless trees I have planted.
His love tears away at the weeds that have overtaken me.
His love whips and whirls around me in an overwhelming rush.
It takes me up to His holy place to meet Him face to face.
It allows me to drop back down to earth and humbly cry out to Him.
It clears the stones embedded in the soil of my life.
His love places them on God's mighty shoulders.
He throws them into the deepest sea. 
He fills the emptiness that remains with untamed hope.

His love is mighty;
A mighty love hungry to do a mighty work.
It grips me with gentle, strong hands.
It will not let me go.
It begs me to collapse into it's arms.
It beckons me to newness.
It promises to give me a new heart.
 

I will not run from it.
I will not seek shelter against it.
His love waits relentlessly for me.
 

Let Your love refine me, Lord.
Refine me.

by Jenna Masters