James 1:2-3 states:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." This is tough to live out, I find. An analogy that helps me is one that compares ourselves to rusty chunks of scrap iron, pulled from a junk pile, useless to anybody, and the best thing we can hope for is that we will be on the top of the junk pile, instead of the bottom.
Then along comes the Blacksmith, and for whatever reason, sees potential in you and picks you up out of the pile. This is where the inevitable break down of the analogy happens; it's hard to come up with how the Blacksmith dies on behalf of the scrap iron. But anyway, you feel good about this, being chosen, being separated from the junk pile, but often as not, at the same time, He is just lighting the forge-fire, and putting his tools in order. Then, abruptly, you are thrust into the forge of trials for what feels like an impossible length of time, and next, much to your relief you are pulled out
right before your melting point, but instantly after that, you are plopped on the anvil and He commences to pounding you lustily with large hammer, molding you, shaping you into whatever He is wanting. Mostly, during this process of transmogrification, you feel horribly persecuted, to say the least, more than just bruised or battered, you are literally shedding flaky scales of your crusty, metallic flesh, you are losing your
very nature of who you are; he is not merely re-shaping you into a different shaped piece of junk, but has a plan for you, to
morph you into a incredibly beautiful, ornate, but ingenious tool of divine purpose, that is designed to bring glory to himself, by which time that happens, you have found that it is only in doing this thing that you were made for that brings the most amount of salve to your scorched soul. And as improbable as it seems, sometimes as you can catch the occasional glimpse of yourself and see what he is working toward, you can tell of what shape you will someday take, you welcome it.
But, sometimes you feel it isn't worth it, the pounding or the trials. Then you go to Sonic with your children and you sit in your car waiting on your shakes or sundaes to be brought to your car window when you notice the young woman, though it is hard to tell how young; the years have NOT been kind to her, sitting at the table directly in front of you, facing you, yelling for water into the microphone, head lolling around, her eyes rolling back into her head when they are open, and the jerky, involuntary, repetitive hand motions and twitching legs. She is obviously so spun out of her mind that she has no idea where she is, much less what she is doing. As painful as this is to watch, and even as your heart breaks and cries out for this sad creation that God himself died for, just the same as he died for you, but because you so easily recognize this, you are, in some small way, glad that you have a real life, panoramic view of this vignette playing out for you to illustrate and warn your kids about the dangers of drugs, yes, but more than that, this was directly caused by the result of living in this world solely for your own pleasure as chronicled so well in the bible. You and your family watch this appallingly dramatic Drive-In Theater, featuring The Tragedy of Self-Destruction Via Unchecked Delectation unfolding 20 feet in front of your car, as you can't help but be witness to her as she spills, spits, and vomits all over. Finally when the cops, firemen and EMT's swarm up, she is near comatose, head slumped down, just sitting. They try to get her to speak, but she is reduced to quiet mumbles and still the repetitive hand motions, so they carefully haul her away, and clean up after her.
And after the ice cream is eaten, after the sermon is preached, in the quiet car on the ride home you are flooded, overwhelmed, even devastated by the realization of how grateful you are that you have a Blacksmith that loves you enough to keep pounding you into something better. And it makes you beg for more.
Because:
We love not the forge;
nor the anvil;
But we love He who wields the hammer.
