2nd MILE

I feel if you help a friend, You are Serving God & he will bless you. I have come to realize often times the blessing only comes after 2nd mile. (bible ref.), (matt 5:41) he wants to bless us, But he puts the blessing in the 2nd mile. "The refiners fire" only purfies with sacrifce.
When I say the refiners fire only purifies with sacrifice: I mean when you purify a metal you have to give up something in order to purify it. In our lifes if we are to become pure we have to give up something. We have to give up our impurities or "our favorite sins". I have learned when a master jewler is refining silver he has to do it in a very specific manner.
If the metal is not heated enough all of the impurities will not be removed.
If the metal is over heated it can loose its temper and become brittle.
In our life as we go through the refiners fire it is important that we do not become too hot and loose our temper during our trials.
During this refining process, from what I understand, The seasoned Jewler knows for a brief second when he has purified the silver, because he can see his reflection in the metal.
When we are enduring the trials of our refiners fire, The Lord knows when we are pure when he can see his reflection in US.
May we live our life in a manner that we can become b"E"tter instead of b"I"tter when lifes trials are upon us.
When we become better we look for the best in "E"veryone but when we become bitter it comes from selfishness because we can only look within our selves and look others falts of others which leads us to become b"I"tter.
The only way to sweeten a Lemon is to add sugar.
Be the sugar in someones life who has lemons. If you have lemons look for someone to serve and you will find sugar.
When we serve others we seem to sweeten our life and theirs and it makes us happy.
Often times our service comes out of a need that we recognize.
Once again when we are in the service of our fellow man we are only serving the master. When we sweeten someone elses life with kindness and service we cant help but sweeten our own life in return.
So go and be the sweetner in the lives of those you meet, who seem to have drawn a pail of lemons. If you do this I promise you will be blessed in the second mile.
by D. Newburn