Key Words: For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me
It was Rutherford who said in the midst of very painful trials and heartaches: "Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace!"
Now, the hammer is a useful and handy tool. It is essential and helpful if nails are ever to be driven into place. Each blow of the hammer forces the nail deeper until it reaches its destination.
But if the nail had feelings and intelligence, it would give us a different side of the story. To the nail, the hammer is a brutal, relentless master, an enemy who loves to pound into submission. That is the nail's view of the hammer, but let me ask, is it a correct view? The nail tends to forget that both it and the hammer are held by the same workman. The workman decides whose "head" will be pounded out of sight... and which hammer will be used to do the job.
The same analogy holds true for the metal that endures the rasp of the file and the heat of the furnace.
Heartaches and disappointments are like the hammer, the file, and the furnace. They come in all shapes and sizes: an unfulfilled romance, a lingering illness and untimely death, an unachieved goal in life, a broken home or marriage, a severed friendship, or a rebellious child. Sometimes heartaches come suddenly... other times they come on slowly and seem to hang on forever.
So today I write to those of you who have begun to resent the blows of the hammer, the file, and the furnace of trials in your life. God knows what He's doing. The bruising and crushing and melting process is designed to reshape you, not ruin you. Your value is increasing the longer God lingers over you.
A.W. Tozier once said, “It is doubtful whether God can fully use a man until He has hurt him deeply.”
Aching friend, stand fast like David, when under the siege of Saul in I Samuel 30:6, “…but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”
If you weren’t important, do you really think God would be working so hard on you?
What to do:
✞Realize our strength comes from the Lord.
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