The Art of Refinement

In modern culture, the word "refinement" is a word that we don't use a lot. We throw around the word perfection, but never refinement. 

Refinement by definition means

1. Improvement; an addition or alteration that improves something by making it more sophisticated or effective.
2. The process of making something more pure.

While working on the poster for my senior thesis group project, I started thinking about refinement. 

I originally made a first draft of the poster, which is the first photo below, and I was pretty satisfied with it at first. But when I showed it to a friend, she graciously admitted that it looked like I made it in Paint, which made me want to tweak it and make it better.

So I made alterations.

A tweak here.

A tweak there.

More white here.

Less white here.

I made a bunch of drafts, and after each one, I tweaked some more. Even after I came up with a concept that I was pretty satisfied with, my team had ideas that made the poster even better. So I tweaked once again. 

Over the course of a day, the poster was refined and improved multiple times. It is now in a place where it feels finished and final. 

But it struck me how the refinement of an idea and a piece of art is similar to the refinement of a person's faith.  

At first, we think things look great. 

And then there's something that could be better. Something that could be tweaked. Something that could be changed. We are constantly being refined. But we never reach perfection  (in this life anyway).

For the Christian, God is constantly refining us and our faith. It's hard and sometimes it hurts, but ultimately He's removing our rough edges and making us more like Jesus. Our refinement makes our faith stronger. 

"In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
1 Peter 1: 6-8

Faith, like an idea or a piece of art, improves and is strengthened from refinement. A faith that stands the test of refinement, trials, and fire, is worthy of praise when we meet Jesus face to face.

Refinement is a beautiful thing. In some ways, it's even an art.

Below is evidence of the refinement of the poster for my group film. While I thought that the first draft was the "bees knees" , I now think that it's kind of laughable. Feel free to take a gander and enjoy the art of refinement.

You can also learn more about the production of this film here. 

And the final product...