The Blacksmith’s Shop
Back in September my wife and I was in Dodge City, Kansas on vacation and went to the Boot Hill Museum. Of course there was a lot to see, The reenactment of gunfights in the streets of Dodge, the Old Church where they still hold weddings there for a price and booked well in advance. It is very beautiful with the wooden floors and hard wood pews, The Doctor’s office, Newspaper office, Undertakers, The Boot Hill cemetery marked with old headstones where only one woman was ever buried there. The Gunsmith, The General Store, and of course The Long Branch Saloon where Miss Kitty or one of her girls or maybe even old Sam the bar tender, depending on who’s working the day you are there will serve you coffee, soda, and of course my favor, a bottle of Sarsaparilla. They were so good we brought 12 bottles home with us. There is even a piano player there that will ask you where you from and when you tell him the state, he will play that states song.
But as you come out of the saloon and walk down toward the east end of the mock town of the old days at the end of the street you come upon the Blacksmith Shop. The building is of the usual drab unpainted flat lumber, roof covered with cedar shingles. Besides the wide front door, light only comes through one small window on the north and two others on the east side of the building. It was quite a large building and the Blacksmith lived upstairs over the shop area, quite a good place actually. Back in the cowboy days some Blacksmiths worked at night in the summer time so they would be cooler. It could be very hot in the summer with the fire from the forge going and the actual temperature sometimes being reaching over 100 degrees. The Blacksmith usually would hold an important office in the town such as the magistrate. I did not know this until I read the history of the Smith. Neither job was easy.
But as we entered the open work area I noticed three types different piles of tools. There were tools on the junk pile: outdated, broken, dull and rusty. They laid in the cobwebbed corner, useless to their master, oblivious to their calling.
Then there were tools on the anvil: melted down, molten hot, moldable, and changeable. They lay on the anvil, being shaped by their master, accepting their calling.
Then there was a pile (in a chest) of usefulness: Sharpened, primed, defined, and mobile. They lay ready in the blacksmith’s tool chest, available to their master, fulfilling their calling.
These piles of tools got me to thinking. Some people lie useless also: lives broken, talents wasting, fires quenched, and dreams dashed. They are tossed in with the scrap iron, in desperate need of repair, with no notion of purpose.
Others lie on the anvil: hearts open, hungry to change, wounds healing, visions clearing. They welcome the painful pounding of the blacksmith’s hammer, longing to be rebuilt, begging to be called.
Others lie in their Master’s hands: well - tuned, uncompromising, polished, productive. They respond to their Master’s forearm, demanding nothing, surrendering all.
You know, we are all somewhere in the blacksmith’s shop. We are either on the scrap pile, in the Master’s hands on the anvil, or in the tool chest. (Some of us have even been in all three). From the shelves to the workbench, from the water to the fire…I’m sure that somewhere you can see yourself.
Paul spoke of becoming an instrument for noble purposes. 2 Timothy 2: 21 says:
“If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”
The rubbish pile of broken tools, the anvil of recasting, the hands of the Master – it’s a simultaneously joyful and painful voyage. And for you who make the journey – who leave the heap and enter the fire, dare to be pounded on God’s anvil, and doggedly seek to discover your own purpose – take courage, for you wait the privilege of being called “God’s chosen instruments.”
So, take a minute and ask yourself, what pile in the blacksmith’s shop or you in.