Every single one of us live our lives in seasons. We live through seasons of great happiness, great sorrow and everything in between. God has a way of transitioning us through these different seasons as a way of testing our faith and showing Him how strong we are in our faith. To me, it is like He is the great blacksmith.
A blacksmith creates his wares by first forging them in a fiery furnace. The iron is heated super hot to where it is malleable, waiting for the master to shape it into whatever he wants the end result to be. Then, after it has come through the fire, the iron can be molded and shaped into its perfect form, and it is strong and ready to endure the tests of time and serve its purpose.
We are the iron and He is the blacksmith. The same illustration can be made with clay of course. He is the potter and we are the clay. He takes our lives in His hands and uses sometimes a gentle touch, and sometimes force, to work towards molding us into His works of art, ready to be used as vessels for Him.
One more example could be music. We are the instruments in His grand orchestra and He is the master musician. He can take us and use us to make beautiful music, far better than we could ever make on our own. As the old song goes, we all are living our lives waiting for the touch of the Master’s hand. We yearn for the great blacksmith to forge us, or mold us, or play us until we are ever closer to the work of art that He longs for us to become.
My father pointed out to me this past week that even the strongest of iron can be made less than perfect by outside forces. If the newly formed iron, still hot and fresh out of the fire is left unattended and gets wet, it becomes tainted, less than perfect. The same goes with a potter and his clay. If the conditions are not right, the vessel can become weak, misshaped or less than desirable. The same premise can be applied to music. If you have a beautiful Stradivarius being played by a saxophone player, the music will not be what it should have been. Likewise, a master guitarist can take an old, weathered guitar and tune the strings just right, and make beautiful music.
My point is, no matter what we do, where we are, or our particular station in life, we should always place our lives in the hands of the Master. Then, as he crafts us into what He wants us to be, we should do all we can to keep our hot iron selves out of the rain, keep our clay soft and malleable, and live our lives in a manner where He can make beautiful music with us.
Seasons will always change. With the falling leaves comes the nurturing of the soil. The cold and bitter snows can bring much needed moisture for our dry souls, and the pouring rains of our lives can be used to wash away things in our lives that maybe we wouldn’t let go of on our own.
Whatever season you find yourself in today, I pray that you look to Him to show you the benefit of what you are going through. This is often a hard task. It is difficult to stand in a storm and wonder what good can come from it. Perhaps one of the most challenging facets of faith is to stand knee deep in the snow of a cold, dark place and still trust Him to have a reason for our shivering.
Farther along, we’ll know all about it. Farther along we’ll understand why.