An instrument in the Master's hand

This is a copy of a note I wrote on Fb, but I'd like to put it here as well. I'll do the same with a couple others, and then start writing new things, just for here. If you'd like to read the full list of my notes, here's the link to my Fb page with them all.

http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=555385331&notes_tab=app_2347471856

But for now, here's this note:

Do you know how a knife is made? It's an arduous process, really. 

First, it is simply iron ore deep in the ground, useless and idle. 

Next, when it is dug up, it is smelted down and impurities removed.

The more pure ore is either melted and molded into a shape, or given another step and mixed with other metal(s) to make some compound, generally steel.

The steel blade just formed is very dull; it would have great difficulty actually cutting--it would simply force its way through something or smash it; it's excessively dull even at this point, though it does have more practical use than it did a few steps ago. 

Here we stop MAKING the knife and start SHARPENING it. 

Though the blade may have the general shape of a knife, it is quite dull and still of little practical use. 

Do you know what a grinder is? It's a wheel made of a very abrasive material, similar to a file (or emery board, I suppose) but highly abrasive, connected to a motor which spins it; the knife is held against this rough, hard wheel, and the sparks fly! The chunks of steel a grinder can take off can be anywhere from very small up to possibly a millimeter in size, and it takes hundreds of these off. One would think it wouldn't take very long to shape a knife in this way, but when done correctly, it takes a good bit of time, perhaps half an hour of grinding away. If it's done too fast, and the grinder is held in the same place for too long, it heats the metal too much and weakens it, so there's a pace to be held. 

When the grinder has finished its work, the knife is much sharper than it was before, but the test of a knife is whether it will cut paper cleanly, and a knife at this point in sharpening still has many small burrs on the sharp of the blade which need to be filed away. The knife-maker uses a less harsh file and works away at taking those burrs off, which again takes patience and time. He uses less and less harsh files which take away smaller and smaller bits of steel off the cutting edge, until at last he has found the razor edge. 

It's the same way with us, and this illustration can be applied to many facets of our life, spiritual, physical, or otherwise. First, we're made into the general shape of what we will one day be, then the bigger areas are knocked off, and on down to taking the smaller points off, to where we are finally made sharp in whatever it is on which we're working. And since everything we do is to be done for the glory of God, even the non-spiritual areas are to be used for serving and glorifying Him. 

I can't know at what point you are as you read this, but know that the master knows how to make and sharpen you so that you will be a tool fit for his use. He's made a great many knives before he ever came to you. Do you think the piece of iron ore sitting in the rock wants to go through the process to become a knife? I doubt it, for it's very painful, many times over and for extended periods of time, but when the master is done, it is a highly prized tool, made ready for the task for which it was created. And so are you, being smelted down and ground down and filed down and heated and burned, but when the process is done, you will be a highly prized tool, fit for the task and ready in the Master's hand.