Forging: Shaped by the Master Daniel Sheppard “God is looking to reproduce Himself in us, though we remain unique and formed for individual purposes. We are molded as tools to serve His purpose and to benefit one another.”
I n first grade, our class took a field trip to Hale Farm and Village in Northeast Ohio. It’s a living histo- ry museum designed to show what community life was like in the mid- 1800s. The site features all the com- mon trades of the era: candle-mak- ing, broom-making, brick-making, and even glass blowing. But the part that captured my imag- ination most was the blacksmith’s forge. When our group entered the black- smith’s shop, the man at the forge was working on a piece of farm equipment. He showed us the many items he had created from raw steel. Among them was a rose he had fashioned from scrap iron. It looked as if it had been freshly cut from a garden, something my grandmother might have grown. The only differ - ence was that this rose was made of black iron rather than red petals and green leaves. It was stunning- ly beautiful. I remember wishing I could take it home, but we weren’t allowed to touch it, it was a fragile work of art. That memory stayed with me. Over the years I’ve read books and watched countless videos about blacksmithing. I’ve even dreamed of setting up a forge of my own, maybe someday in my backyard. What fascinates me most is this: When a blacksmith needs a tool he doesn’t have, he doesn’t run to the store. He takes a piece of scrap met-
al and makes the tool himself. What others consider worthless, he trans- forms into something useful and en- during. You may be wondering, what does this have to do with being a Chris- tian? Each person has a different role. No two are the same, and that is exactly God’s intent. God is our Master Blacksmith. He is assembling a vast set of tools for the work He intends to do, and those He calls are the tools. Each person has a unique purpose and ability. Through His guidance He is shaping and re- fining His people into instruments ready for His use.
Before being called, everyone is like scrap metal lying in a heap (see I Corinthians 1:26-29). We are ordi- nary, overlooked and without direc- tion. God sees the individual poten- tial in each person, picks them up and begins to form them. Steel, however, is not easily worked. It is hard, unyielding, and often brit- tle. Some of us are the same, stub- born, resistant, and difficult to mold. A blacksmith must use extreme heat to make steel malleable. Consider an old, worn-out file. Files are ex - ceptionally hard and brittle, but be- fore they can be reshaped they must be annealed: Heated to a high tem- perature and then allowed to cool slowly. This removes brittleness and prepares the steel for shaping. After annealing, the steel is placed back into the forge and heated again, often to temperatures of 2,100 to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, so it can be hammered and formed into something new.
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