#193 Still Chosen While Being Refined

Fire changes what it touches, and that’s exactly why the refining process feels so intense. We’re leaning into Malachi 3:2–3 and telling the truth about spiritual refinement: God can be shaping you and choosing you at the same time. When life starts demanding a pivot and your old mindset can’t carry you anymore, that doesn’t mean you’re behind. It can mean you’re being purified for what’s next. 

We walk through what the refining fire burns away, including fear, comfort, unhealthy attachments, toxic relationships, and unbelief, then we talk about what replaces them: a renewed mindset, deeper faith, healthier connections, and real clarity. We also unpack why sanctification is an ongoing process. You may revisit a similar battle, but you don’t have to respond the same way. You’re not going in circles, you’re going deeper. 

Along the way, we look at Job and other biblical examples of calling under pressure, plus a vivid “transformer” picture of how God shifts us from the inside out. We also share how grief can crack and even shatter a life, and why it matters who you allow to rebuild you. The challenge that closes it out is simple and searching: instead of asking why you’re here again, ask what God is producing in you now. 

If this brought you comfort or conviction, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s in a refining season, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. What do you believe God is refining in you right now?

A journey through spiritual refinement, identity, healing, and growth, learning how pressure produces purpose and reveals the diamond within.

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A Christ-centered journey of reset, refinement, and realignment, helping you confront darkness, heal deeply, and walk boldly in your God-given identity and purpose.

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Thank you for listening, and we hope you will return every week.

Transcript

Welcome To The Refining Season

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hello, hello, and welcome back one more time, guys. Diamonds in the rough. I am your post Catherine. I am so glad to be before you one more time. I hope all is well where you are. Hope that you're having a great day. Yes, I hope that um whenever you're watching this or listening to this, that you are prospering and um, you know, today is going the way you desired it to go. Yes, hallelujah. So today's topic is still chosen while being refined. You are still being chosen while being refined. What a blessing, yes? Such a blessing to realize and understand that even though I'm going through, I'm still being blessed. Hallelujah. And just a reminder, the Anchor Scripture, Malachi chapter 3, verses 2 through 3. So, y'all know what we gotta do before we go any further. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for another day. Thank you, God, for allowing us to be able to come together one more time to get a word from you. I pray, God, that you would speak clearly through your vessel, God. I pray in the name of Jesus that everyone that is able to hear is able to receive. I pray in the name of Jesus that your will will be done here in this place. God, for I turn it over to you. Have your way. In Jesus Christ's name, we do pray. Amen. Amen and amen. Hallelujah. Oh, y'all don't even know what is going on in the room right now. I've got stuff going on that way. Help me. So um, if I if I sound a little lost here and there, it's just because I'm trying to keep up. You hear me? Trying to keep up with this new day. You heard like, oh, it things just ain't what it used to be. You hear me? It's just not. And even with saying that, like, that's a part of the refinement. Yeah, like you don't do things the same way you used to do. Yeah. You got to be able to pivot, I guess you could say, into the now. Yeah. So once again, like it's evident, like old mindset, you those things don't don't work in the new. So uh last week, uh, we did a deep dive into some divine revelation about what can't go forward that the fire removes. We did a deep dive. So if you did not tune into last week's episode, I want to encourage you to do that. Make sure that you check in to last week's episode. Absolutely. Uh, the things that get left behind, sometimes it hurts to even look at it. These things that God revealed to me about what actually has to go into the fire and gets burned out of. Number one, I was just talking about it. The fact that I have to adapt to doing this in a way where it caters to everyone. Because everybody don't get on podcasts and just listen. Most people in our day they want to see. So I got a camera running right here on my left side, and then I got my notes on the right side. I got the camera. Ah, uh, it's gonna get better. You heard what I'm saying? Because the refining process, it makes the things that you that you are, makes with who you are, and the things that you're doing makes you makes it even more valuable once he gets rid of the stuff that's not benefiting you anymore. So old mindsets, fear, comfort, unhealthy attachments, things like toxic, toxic relationships and habits, and you know, things that just don't, they're not a part of our growth any longer. And the last one, if you put it in one word, it's unbelief. Those are some things that kind of they go through the, you know, they go through that fire, and then you know, once a fires happen, especially when things are being burned up, wood, whatever have you, there's some particles left behind that you can look back and see, oh, this didn't burn. This this couldn't burn. This couldn't go go with what came out of it. Because the scripture talks about how uh our God and and and Jesus is is the referring fire. He's like a man who is deals with soap and and and and silver and gold. And uh look, that's what we've been on the last ever since we started this year. Like, this is what it looks like. He when you're coming out of the refinest fire, you are coming out of a whole nother version of yourself, coming out a whole nother idea. I mean, a whole nother, I say, look about yourself. Because when gold goes through there, it doesn't even go through there in the same form. You heard what I'm saying? When it comes out and it sets, it's harder, it's stronger, it's much firmer, it has much more clarity. Those things are left behind. Now you have more value. Okay, we talked about the old these are things left behind. Old mindsets, fear, comfort, unhealthy attachments, and unbelief. So, in turn, the flip side of it is you gain a new mindset. You get you have less fear and more faith. Does that make sense? Okay, so out of the five, you get five replacements. You are uncomfortable, but you have a willingness to adapt and learn. Like you, you like once once you're uncomfortable, like you gotta figure it out so you can get comfortable again. Yeah, you can get comfortable again, but I'm going somewhere with this. Look, you get go, you get growth, you get new, healthier relationships, more relationships, and you know, you are able to, so to speak, you are getting ready to outgrow some more. You heard what I'm saying? Like these relationships, these uh levels of growth is going to make you more. You heard what I'm saying? It's going to help you to grow more. And the last and not the least, but clarity and focus. Like, when you got unbelief going on, it's hard to focus on what is true, what is real, what is what is Philippians 4 and 8 talks about, talks about, you know, the things that are real. That's what we gotta learn how to focus on. That's what we have to learn to focus on. It is so much to put your eye on that we can easily lose focus and lose what it is all about. And so that's what that fire, the fiery fire, and the fiery furnace, it drowns out some things so some new things can come forth. So if you are willing to go through the process, at the end of the day, you're gonna come to the place where you where you're gonna look up and be like, oh wow, wow, I didn't realize this is that this was even happening. Now, these are just five that the spirit highlighted out to me, but I'm sure that there are more. Like, look at your own life. Look at look at what you have come out of and what came out of it. What were you going through that now you can look at and say, oh yes, you know, I hope you got your journals on. I hope you're making notes, even while you're listening. Like, when we look at our topic from this new mindset, and and and when I say what do I mean when I say that? Looking at it from what it was to now what it is, or when you're looking back in the past and you see what it was and then what it came out of, then you come to realize that it's cyclic, it's processed. Like as long as we live, we're continuingly being filtered. Because that's that is what refinement is. We're being filtered from season to season. We think most of the time we think that because let me see, let me y'all know I'm reading my notes. Because you think I made it through, that's when you really I just need to turn the page. Y'all look, I I'm gonna finish my thought in a second, but one thing I want you to understand is I am a real person, and I told you, I'm ever learning. I'm a student just like as I am a teacher. It sounds crazy, but God has made me a teacher, but he's also keeping me a student, and so I'm learning how to follow notes. I am a free spirit, baby. I don't follow notes typically, but refinement, refinement, y'all are seeing it live and in person. Like at the end of the day, you will find yourself doing things you typically don't do because it's uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for me to follow notes, but what I'm coming to realize is that notes keep me structured, notes keep me on track, it keeps everybody from getting lost in all of my thoughts. Does that make sense? So let me let me try this again. So the catch 2020 is because you think, because most of us be thinking, I made it through. That's when you realize that God is evolving you from season to season into sanctification. This is how you can hold to your reality of still being chosen. Hallelujah. He is still pruning and shaping you. Hallelujah. This is what refinement looks like. The things that are not helping you, the things that are not aiding to your growth, it gets rid of. We share the analogy of the plant all the time of the bad apples. One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch. If you don't get rid of the dead leaves, it will overtake the ones that are alive. You would think, how can one destroy all when it's just one and you have so much more that is alive? One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch. That's just that I believe that that is that is one of many ways that God says or is trying to teach us as we go through life that look evil is evil, corruption is corruption. You heard what I'm saying? And where there is either of the two, there cannot be life. Because because death is a real thing. Like darkness and all of these things, they have nothing to do with life. I'm talking about evil, talking about darkness, talking about destruction. Those things, if if they could all mix together, then it wouldn't be a such thing as heaven and hell. Okay? Everything would be in heaven, everything, or it's an either or the or you can't have the two. This is why I just believe that one bad apple can ruin a whole bunch. Like, it's not about one being better than the other, but it is about right and wrong, it's about righteousness, and it's about becoming like Christ, being a Christian. You don't become like Christ and continue in the old way. You more and more, you're gonna become like Christ, become like Christ, more and more, you're going to grow and you're gonna change and shift, and the dead things have to fall off. Hallelujah. You may have to revisit similar battles, but because of the refining, you don't react or respond the same way. You heard what I'm saying? Like, what am I saying? Like, and this is in the realm of still being chosen. The point is, don't question whether or not you've been chosen. Like, you know that you know that you know, that you are a part of the flock of God, that you are a child of God, you know that you know that you know. Don't allow circumstances or situations or even bad decisions make you believe that you that you are not chosen. Because it's one thing I could tell you, you gotta fall down before you can get up. So mistakes are to be expected. It's a part of the plan of God, it's a part of your growth. This is why I say, like, you might wind up in the same position later in life that you were in maybe five years ago, maybe even a couple of months ago. You might be in that same position, but if you learned the lesson the last time, when you get in that position again, you're gonna make a better choice, you're gonna react differently, you're gonna respond differently differently. I hope that that makes sense because you are more mature, you are being sanctified. Sanctification is a process. Being chosen doesn't mean you don't go through fires, it means God, it means that God trusts God trusts you in the process. That is what it means that He trusts that even though you got some kind of temptation or fire going on, he knows that you're gonna choose him, but you must go through the process. That means you must make the mistake in order to find the lesson. You must you look at Job, and I often I I refer back to this often a lot of times. You look at the life of Job and our word, and you see Satan was minding his business, he was going and doing what he did, and God stops him and says, What are you doing? He said, I'm going to find, I'm seeking whom I can devour. Then he says, Have you tried my servant Job? Come on now. God gave Job permission to go after him and job, and and and Satan's response is like, Oh, he he's a man of faith. Like he then he said, he said, but if you take, if you take, if you take that protection you got on him, off of him, I I I can get him. You heard what I'm saying? And if God says, okay, well, I'll take it off, but you you can't touch him. You heard what I'm saying? And he said, and he he went and took everything that he had that was valuable to him. He came back, look, see, I told you, look, you gotta take that protection off of him. He said, Okay, I'm gonna take it off of him. He said, but you cannot take his life. And so this is when we see the attack on his physical body. But Job never swayed from understanding and knowing who God is and who he put his trust in. God knows if you can if he can trust you. You hear me? Hallelujah. He knows if he can trust you. Like at the end of the day, he knows how strong you are. Ain't nothing that you're going through too big for you because he trusts you. But you gotta understand, he's trying to show you who you are in his sight. This is what this show is all about. The diamond. You are a diamond, diamond, regardless of what you're going through. But you gotta go through the fires, you have to go through the pressures, you have to go through the things that we often don't want. The being fearful, the being being the things uh, the uh being uncomfortable, the being in the toxic relationship, having the old mindset, like all of those things, because the reality is is that yeah, you're going through a new season, you're in a new season, but eventually that season is gonna be old too, and you're gonna have to come out of it, and so you're gonna have to go through more fires, so you just keep going through the same things, differently, different battles, similar but different. But each one, it it pushes you, it throttles you to grow, to become more mature. Not only look at Joe, but you can look at Abraham or Abram, who turned whose name was name was changed to Abraham. You can look at Joseph, how they put him in the pit. They were trying to kill him because of because of jealousy and envy, and how he ended up going from the pit to the palace. You can look at Mary. Mary was a virgin that he that God decided, I'm gonna put my son inside of her. So everybody talked about her and all the above, even a quote, even her fiance almost divorced her. Do you hear what I'm saying? John the Baptist, he was out in the wilderness eating bugs and all of these things, and they just look wild hair, and they talked about him. They thought he was crazy, but God has still chosen him. Last but not least, you and me. Look at what you've gone through, look at what you've made it through, look at who you are now. Hallelujah, hallelujah. He stretches and he tests us, even while removing what we can't see. It's not punishment, it's proof you're called. Ain't chosen, you heard me? I'm gonna say that again. He stretches and tests us, even while removing what we can't see. It is not punishment. So don't think, oh, I did this wrong and I did that wrong. No, it is a part of the process. Acknowledging that I stray, acknowledging that I uh I shouldn't have did that. You know, all of that is proof that you've been called and chosen because he gotta get rid of the dead things, he has to shift your mindset, it's a part of the transformation process. I equated it to the transform transformer, the toy. It doesn't look like it, what it was. When you first see the transformer, it looks normal, it looks regular, it looks like you know, a beauty of its own, it looks like a car, it looks like an airplane, looks like whatever it is. But once it goes into this whole different mode, it's a whole lot of clicks and shifts, boom, boom, boom, click, click, click, click, take, tick, tick, tick, and then finally you're looking at this thing, like, what in the world is that? But what does it feel? It's filled with power, it's filled with conviction, it's filled with with fury, it's filled with uh with what it was destined to do inwardly. Because that transformer, all you see is what is on the outside when it's first presented to you. But if you didn't know that it was a transformer, uh you didn't, if you didn't know that it was that that yellow car was B, look, if you didn't know, you would think it's just your normal car. But when it's ready to fight, when it's gotta protect its own, it stands up in a whole different being. Is that familiar? Look, when somebody is and when you gotta stand up for your child, you gotta stand up for your husband, for your wife, it's a whole shift. When you gotta stand up for something you're passionate about, it's a whole shift. You you yourself look at the man and say, wait a minute, where did that come from? Who is this? Am I by myself? I hope not. Hallelujah. I know me. I shift. It's something inside of me that shift, and I get rear in the go. You're talking about something that I care about, something that's valuable to me. I'm there's something inside of me rises up that oftentimes I didn't even know it's there. Hallelujah. God is intentional about our process, He allows even the things that hurt not to break us. But to build us. My son, when he passed away, I didn't know that I would be able to survive. I didn't know that life would, I would be able to continue to live a life without him. Life is different without him. I think about him every day. You hear what I'm saying? It's different without him. But with God, he has made made it to where I have learned to live with his memory. With the time that we spent together. Hallelujah. A very significant part of my life. But it broke me. It did break me. But it built me. You hear what I'm saying? Excuse me. I wouldn't even say it broke me. I would say it cracked me. You heard what I'm saying? But no. Let me change that. It did break me. It crushed me. It shattered my life. And so God had to build me back up. And God is still building me back up. A whole lot of folk get stuck. If you're stuck, if you've gotten stuck at the broken place, then somebody has to rebuild you. Don't allow alcohol. Don't allow people. Don't allow bad habits. Don't allow old mindsets. Don't allow uh fear. Don't allow all of these things to build you up. Allow God to build you up in a way that you can look back at what happened. I look back at what happened to my son. And I think he's in a better place. It still disturbs me what happened and how it was handled after the fact. It still disturbs me. I'm still wrestling with what to do. That was the right that what I wrestle is. Should I just leave it where it's at? Or should I pursue police because they mishandled his case? And the evidence is right in the report that they mishandled his case. I'm sitting here, I'm still, I got till October to figure out what to do. Hallelujah. I believe that the things that we go through, it builds us to make us better. Hallelujah. To make us better. Here's a challenge I'm going to throw out here to you as we're coming to a close. Instead of asking this question, why am I here again? Because that's you know, it's human nature. We think, why in the world am I here? Why does this keep why do I keep ending up in the same spot? Why do I keep I dare you to ask, instead, ask, what is being produced in me now? What is God producing inside of me? What is God, God, what are you, what are you bringing out of me now? What what what are you getting? What are you getting rid of now? What are you bringing into fluition now? Let's change our posture and stop questioning as if it's a negative or a bad thing. Let's ask God, because like we can talk to our father, ask him, what are you bringing out? What is it you're trying to show me now? Why I'm still I'm I'm here again. I'm different. I know I'm not where I was. I know I'm not as immature as I was the last time I got into this spot. But in this spot, what are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to get out of me? Because he don't, he the greatest work God does is in the smallest ways. It's in the ways that we can't see. The greatest work. Hallelujah. He might tell you today, read a book. I want you to read this book. And you sitting there thinking, I don't want to read nothing. I don't like reading, I don't got time to read. But he said, I want you to read this book. I have about five different books that I'm reading. And I keep thinking to myself, I gotta finish these books, I gotta finish these books. But what I've come to realize is that each book has a significant role in where I am from day to day. Hallelujah. So I might read the same book for three or four days, but then I just stop and I end up picking up another book and read it for a day or two. And I may end up picking up another one and reading it, and I'm like, I just don't make no sense. But I can only hear God saying, just do it. Just do it. Hallelujah. Because eventually, even if I'm going two or three days here or there, here or there, a couple of pages here and there, eventually I'm gonna finish the book as long as I don't stop. Do you hear what I'm saying? All five of those books are gonna get finished as long as I don't stop. No matter how long it takes, I'm gonna finish the books. Hallelujah. That's just that's and that's really the ideology ideology of what it looks like to live a life in the sight of God and live the light of a diamond. Is that through and through, eventually, the story will end. Eventually, when he's trying to get out of it, what he's trying to show you is gonna come. And it's just like our life. Eventually, we're gonna meet him. That is the day we're gonna meet perfection. You heard me? Everything that he wanted to do in us, when we meet him in glory, it'll be done. We are so hard on ourselves. We we think that we gotta have this perfect life while on earth when it doesn't even exist. You heard what I'm saying? It doesn't even exist. Get out of the confinements of this world, don't be conformed to this world. You don't, we don't do things the way that the world does it. I'm talking to my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is what I want you to realize is that you are not going in circles, you're just going deeper. You hear what I'm saying? You're not going in circles, you're just going deeper. You are going deeper, and it is okay. It's a part of the sanctification process. Hallelujah. So let's pray. Father, thank you so much for allowing me to be able to pour out what you've poured in. Pray God. I pray God that you'll continue to shape us, fashion us for this walk that we are on, continue to refine us as you will. God, we love you so much. We're so grateful and so thankful that you don't quit on us, even when we quit on you. I pray, God, that we would know, regardless of how things look at the moment that we're still chosen. I pray that my brother, my sister that is listening here would know they are chosen by you. Ain't no demon in hell. Pull us out of your hand. Hallelujah, God. I just pray you will continue to lead God and order our steps in the way that we ought to go. We love you so much. So grateful for it all. Grateful, Father. We pray that this prayer, our prayer, is pleasing in your sight. Pray it, we ask it. In Jesus Christ's name we do pray. Amen. Amen and amen. Hallelujah. So I'm excited to announce that for the month of April. April, we're gonna be talking about separation and purification. Separation and purification, and the focus is gonna be all about letting go. Letting go now. I I know I be first want to tell you letting go isn't easy at all, but it's a part of the process. Hallelujah. So, and then it will come out of Isaiah 48 and 11. So I am so excited about what God is doing and how he's doing it, and so y'all make sure y'all come on back with me next week as we uh jump into it and get into it, hallelujah, as we go forth in this refining season here at God's diamond in the rough. Michael always said it, he said it a whole lot last year, but I'm gonna say it today. You are you are a diamond. I can't say it like him. But you are a diamond, hallelujah. It's rough, but you are a diamond. Come on back. So much love from me to you. Y'all have a great day.