This will be long, so skip ahead in your feed with my full blessing if you are just skimming FB for a quick update on your friends. My update wont lend itself to that today. Just a few months ago, I attended a retirement celebration for a respected colleague in ministry who is becoming a friend. That day he asked to speak to us from the wisdom accumulated over his decades of pastoral work. I thought it was going to be a party; it turned out to be an important day in my life. He didnt try to tell us how we ought to be doing our jobs. He didnt tell us any secrets for being as successful as he has been at building a congregation that impacts its community for the common good. Instead, he tenderly, humbly shared with us what life has been like on the anvil of pastoral life. And he encouraged us not to try to get out of the difficult, painful processes that can mature ones soul in ways that comfort never can. Congregations need their pastors to gain a depth of character and wisdom that is unaccessible at lifes pleasant surface. What he was trying to teach us that day is beautifully expressed in the following poem by an unknown author. Ive read this piece many, many times in the intervening weeks. It isnt often that a persons contribution to ones life can be summed up in a page, but the contents of the piece of card stock that Mark handed to me that day comes pretty close. Heres what it said: When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, And skill a man When God wants to mold a man To play the noblest part; When He yearns with all His heart To create so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Watch His methods, watch His ways! How He ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects! How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him Into trial shapes of clay which Only God understands; While his tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands! How He bends but never breaks When his good He undertakes; How He uses whom He chooses, And with every powr infuses him; By every act induces him To try His splendor out- God knows what Hes about. Heres to life on the anvil. Thats not my favorite metaphor for the Christian life, but it is an inescapable theme if one reads the same Scriptures that have shaped Jews and Christians for millennia. I hope I dont seem to be whining, nor do I want to seem to bragging in any way. I suppose that the tone of my words could hint at fishing for sympathy, but that is not what is in my heart. The last four months of my life, however, have been something of a crucible, to use a similar metaphor. I am hoping that I have been and will continue to grow as a result of these pressures and pains, that the struggle will produce far more than my survival. As I grieve again and anew this morning at the announcement of the death of a third friend in the past month, I pledge not to resist the hammering of the mighty blows alluded to by the poet. If I am anything at this point in the present season, I hope that I am malleable.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:08:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015