Fiery Trials

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:” (1 Peter 4:12).

I learned as a small child that one purpose of life was to be tried and tested -- to prove ourselves. I imagined in my youth that the test of life was like a test in school. I thought that in life the teacher (God) would through examination determine how much we knew, and how good we were. Later I began to wonder why it was that God needed to test us; didn’t God already know everything? Later I was told that God knew in advance the test results, but we needed to prove to ourselves whether or not we were worthy of celestial glory. That answer was not satisfying to me, as I thought we should be willing to accept God’s word for the test results, and just skip the trial of life altogether.

Later I came to have a new understanding of how the scriptures use the words “prove,” “test,” and “try.” Consider the way the word “try” is used in Zechariah 13:9. “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried…” We might think of being “tried” as in a court of law to prove our guilt or innocence – our purity, if you will – but how do you “try” gold?

There is an interesting article in Wikipedia (on Cupellation) that explains how you try gold and test its purity. There is a very old method sometimes called “fire assaying.” You first melt the material in a crucible. When it is cooled the precious metals and lead will have solidified into a button, separating from the dross or slag. For typical ores the slag layer will be quite massive. The button is then placed in a special pot made of bone ash or clay called a cupel. When heated to a high temperature the lead turns to lead oxide and is absorbed by the cupel, or lost to the atmosphere. At the end of the process “a button of pure gold and silver remains at the bottom of the cupel.” A further step separates the gold from the silver. Note that in the process of trying gold and testing its purity you are also refining it by removing the impurities.

Now when I read in the scriptures about being proved, tested, or tried, I think of fire assaying. I think of the great heat or trials that must be given us in order to separate out all the dross and impurities or imperfections within us. If we endure our trials with patience and faith, as did Job then we can say, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10)

I started this post with 1 Peter 4:12. I think this scripture must have had special significance to Elder Neal A. Maxwell. Elder Maxwell is the only speaker in the last sixty years to have referenced this scripture in a general conference talk, and he used in on four different occasions (http://scriptures.byu.edu). I especially like what he said the last time he made reference to it (April 1997):

“There are many who suffer so much more than the rest of us: some go agonizingly; some go quickly; some are healed; some are given more time; some seem to linger. There are variations in our trials but no immunities. Thus, the scriptures cite the fiery furnace and fiery trials (see Dan. 3:6–26; 1 Pet. 4:12). Those who emerge successfully from their varied and fiery furnaces have experienced the grace of the Lord, which He says is sufficient (see Ether 12:27). Even so, brothers and sisters, such emerging individuals do not rush to line up in front of another fiery furnace in order to get an extra turn! However, since the mortal school is of such short duration, our tutoring Lord can be the Schoolmaster of the compressed curriculum.”