Tempted or Tempered

As I was editing the last blog post I caught myself dreaming/staring at the word "tempered" on the screen. I later deleted it before I posted "Walking on Water" because it didn't fit that post but I was thinking about how I heard it put by someone early on in the summer: God forges people. It's very similar to the concept of the potter you always hear in church but I like this one better.

There's a forge, a smith, and a lump of metal ore. I think you might know where I'm heading with this. So the forge is life and the smith is God and the lump of metal is you. Unformed, untested. You. And what God does is stick you right in the fire, you know, that part that's the hottest and he settles you there for a while. I think this is why people use the potter metaphor: it's easier to imagine. There's water and a wheel and God's hands. And the clay is smoothed out and shaped and it's all just so beautiful. But here, this forge and this fire are scary and hard to wrap your mind around and while the idea of a potter is beautiful and we should look at it once in a while, it's also easy to start thinking that our trying times should look like that wheel and that beauty. Especially when life often doesn't look that beautiful and when it doesn't feel that easy.

Back to the forge metaphor:

God sticking you into fire isn't so that you dissolve into nothing and its definitely not because he's being malicious and likes seeing you squirm. No, its to soften you so that he can begin to shape you into the shape you need to be to do the job you have waiting for you. The time in the fire is different for each type of metal and the time of growing is longer or shorter depending on who the person is. And the smith is responsive to those differences among our metals. We're not all the same type of metal; no one is exactly the same as everyone else no matter how we might stereotype when we're angry.

Honestly, I've wasted so much of my life wishing I could be made of gold, too. Until last night. Last night I was talking with my closest friend and I told him how my struggles with self-esteem have come back and have lead me to that place again where I felt the Tempter trying to get his foot in the door and tempt me back to that road that leads down to you know where. And Friend told me I was an iron shield. "People beat you up," he said, "but you don't have to remain battered". He reminded me that God forged me once. He's forging me again. "Nothing is easy," Friend reminded me. Regrettably, I didn't believe him in the moment. I should have. Friend means more to me than the Tempter - as it should be. But that's how temptation works. Humans are easy to figure out, really. I mean, just whisper something about what they really love and how it might not work and humans just freak out. We want things so badly right now even if we tell ourselves and others we can wait. And that's where the Tempter's waiting. Fortunately for us, that's also where God keeps watch for us. Because as I left the Picnic Grove where I didn't want to listen, I happened to look up at the sky for the first time in about a week spent in head bent, avoiding the world. And when I looked up, that's when I saw the millions of stars in a clear sky that has been rare all summer.

And in those stars I remembered the conversation I had overheard so long ago at the middle of June. And it went something like this:

God is forging us into the tools we need to be to do our jobs.
He will not leave us in the fire to burn away into nothing.
We have a job to do and its no use wishing for a job we weren't forged for.
This is the exciting part of life where we know that God has a job for us.
And he chose only me for the job he set aside for me.
And only me.

It's not in our own strength. And that's the point. Back in time when soldiers wielded swords, one could pull out a sword and appreciate it's strength, the sharpness of its edge, or the balance but it wouldn't have been anything without the smith to craft it. A sword can't make itself. Even though it has a job to do and does that job well it still can't make itself or repair itself without the help of a master to forge it out of steel, to smooth out its jagged edges. That actually takes the pressure off of us, an action which leaves us to focus on properly doing our jobs. If we're not worrying about the outcome it's a little bit easier to be brave, to rush into the fray, and to finish the work he has set aside for us.

The set of verses I was thinking about for this post was right before the Armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-13 (ESV): "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." Have you ever heard just these verses talked about in church? What a sermon that would be! We are called to stand. We are to do everything we can possibly do and then we are called to stand. God asks us to fight with him against the darkness. That's why we must be forged in the hottest fires our metals can withstand. We are not called to live easy lives filled only with easy metaphors and cutesy stories. We are helping fight the most dangerous fight this world will ever know: for the very light of the world. That thought makes me feel a little better about feeling so stressed about growing and feeling pain: God is in control of it all. And even though people may batter us and the Tempter may be stalking us, God is there. All we have to do is trust that the smith knows what he's doing.

To wrap this post up I'll just summarize:
If you think you're nothing, that's probably a temptation.
If you think you'll never do anything with your life, that's probably a temptation.
If you think you'll always be alone and no one will ever help you, that's probably a temptation.

However, that's not where we have to remain. Remember, Jesus was tempted too. And he won that fight. He won it for all of us. One thing I always tell people is that I must have an extremely important job to do because the Tempter is trying his hardest to make sure I can't do it. Don't give him the satisfaction of pulling a strong one down. He's a tempter and that's it. He wasn't strong enough to do the right thing. He can't create: he's not a smith. The Tempter destroys because he can't create. So don't give space for him in your life. We all want to make our lives better so don't listen to someone who steals and destroys. However, God tempers us. He is making us stronger. He pulls us apart to find the good within us and then reassembles us into the shapes that will fill in the puzzle of the world - into the weapons he needs for the most important battle of the world.

And although I am afraid of that fire, all I know is I'd rather spend my life knowing I'm being tempered than to wake up one day and regret all the days I spent being tempted and giving in.