Volcanoes are powerfully destructive, yet they can produce a very beautiful type of rock. It is called an agate, and has great diversity of colour, shape and form. Let's take a journey from the volcano to the polished gem stone and see if God has any precious lessons for us to discover.

Dad and Emmanuel fossicking for agates.

Most agates are formed in air bubbles in volcanic lava. Super-hot silica can flow into these air cavities, wholly or partially filling them. This silica flow forms beautiful bands of colour as it swirls around and then cools. In one single band on an agate there can be up to 70,000 microscopic lines!! Variation in the mineral content of the silica flow forms a variety of beautiful colours. The conditions at the time of cooling can sometimes cause a crystal cave in the middle of the stone.

This forms the basic agate. On the outside it looks like any normal rough stone, with no beauty. The first rough cut is made with a sharp diamond saw which shows only a very rough look at its beauty. So now to the polishing process. This can be done in many kinds of ways, one of which is to place the stone on a round metal disc that has a coating of water and diamond grit on it and hold the stone on this spinning disc until all the saw marks are ground off. After washing the diamond grit off the agate the next 5 or 10 minutes is spent grinding it on a piece of glass with an even finer solution of diamond grit and water. Lastly you wash it again and hold it on another spinning disc that has a solution of polish and water, for about 10 to 15 min. This whole process takes about 30 to 45 min from start to finish (depending on the stone though). The final product is a gem stone, cut and polished to perfection!!

This process reminds me of how Christ makes us ready for His kingdom. In Revelation 3:18 Christ counsels us to buy of Him "gold tried in the fire, that they mayest be rich;" What does it mean to buy Gold tried in the fire?

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:" - 1. Peter 1:7

Thus this gold that Christ is counseling us to buy is trials that will refine and purify us, thus fitting us for His kingdom. As James 1:2-4,says:

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing [this], that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." - James 1:2-4

Thus to be perfect and entire in our Christian walk one needs to go through trials and difficulties. James brings an interesting point here that we should joy though-out this process. Friends how can we joy when going though pain? It puzzled me but Hebrews 12:6 helps us understand.

"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." - Hebrews 12:6

Christ looks at us as His children all rough and unpolished, sees in us something of worth and so begins the refining process. Our earthly fathers correct us out of love and it is the same as our heavenly Father who allows trials and troubles in our lives to take out our rough edges and to fit us for His kingdom. So although this process is painful we can rejoice knowing that God has permitted this trial because He is refining our character!

"Through trial and persecution the glory--the character-- of God is revealed in His chosen ones. The believers in Christ, hated and persecuted by the world, are educated and disciplined in the school of Christ. On earth they walk in narrow paths; they are purified in the furnace of affliction. They follow Christ through sore conflicts; they endure self- denial and experience bitter disappointments; but thus they learn the guilt and woe of sin, and they look upon it with abhorrence. Being partakers of Christ's sufferings, they can look beyond the gloom to the glory, saying, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Romans 8:18." - Ellen G. White, Acts of the Apostles pg. 576 (emphasis added)

You see friends, God permits trials to assail His people that by their consistency and obedience they themselves may be spiritually enriched and their example become a source of strength to others.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" - Jeremiah 29:11.

The very trials that tax our faith most severely and make it seem that God has forsaken us, are there to lead us closer to Christ that we may lay all our burdens at His feet and experience the peace that He gives in exchange.