God chooses the ordinary

One of my favorite “Life Verses” from the Bible has always been Proverbs 27:17… “As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another.”  Life verse since we were created to be part of a community, a band of brothers to speak, in order to walk this patrol towards God’s Purpose with accountability and synergies (and to not lose heart and to “tap out” prematurely).

Spent the day with a brother of mine (Greg), who had invited me out to his shop to spend time with him and to hand-build a knife… see, one of Greg’s many talents are hand-forging/crafting knives that are sought after (and world class).  What started off as a hobby for him has become a true art.  For me, it was just AWESOME to be up on the mountain in his shop for several uninterrupted hours learning how to bring life out of a overly ordinary, remarkably unattractive blank piece of steel that had no form, no shape, and seemingly impossible to change.  

Before we did anything, we looked at the End before ever Beginning…. Greg showed me nearly a dozen finished products knives of all sizes, lengths, purposes, and handling… each knife was hand-made and unique in feel and grip… some did not fit naturally in my big hand, some fit perfectly but were too long for what I wanted – which was a practical hunting knife that was still within the legal length for carry into most places I work or go to on a daily basis.  So, I chose a smaller hunting knife… then, we traced out the knife using a PROVEN TEMPLATE onto the blank piece of steel, to then take that to a large (and dangerous) saw to cut large chunks of unneeded steel around the template… this was followed an hour or so of grinding… through the heat, sparks, and metal shards, the knife was beginning to take form.  Greg then took the still-being-formed-knife over to his anvil, and stamped his trademark logo into the steel (his artisan’s signature that will stay with the finished product for all the world to see).

Next stage is called “HARDENING”… we heat that steel up to 1480 degrees via a furnace, to then plunge the RED HOT steel into a bucket of oil…. After cooling off, that steel knife will not break, and will keep it’s form, function and sharp edge despite use (or abuse). Only then could we start grinding out the actual blade… to have done prior to hardening would have resulted in a faulty blade edge that is often unable to be seen on the surface but would break later while in use.

Funny part of today: a few times, I thought my work was great… silly rabbit.  Greg has such high standards that he quickly saw “micro errors” that I truly could not see (or had not known to look for).  But since his stamp was on this knife already, Greg made sure each stage was perfect J.

I now have a “functional knife” despite not having the handle built… but I am not going to quit till the entire product is complete (handle, sharpened edge, leather sckabert) since I already have a vision of the end state!

All of this reminded me of how God works in my life… He chose me, a very ordinary, very unremarkable blank… Isaiah 46 says “He knows the end before the very beginning” (and says the same in Ps 139) about me… HE has chopped, grinded, and put me into the fire using life (and my own doings)… but as I continue to allow HIM to be my Artisan, HE is making me into HIS knife for HIS intended purpose – and the cool part, HE has already put HIS Name on me as HIS very own before I am even completed!!!  So, I can just relax as He continues to grind, sand, chop and file away at me.  

Giddy up.