Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Pieces Of Gold - Water, Fire, Hammer

There is this girl whom I know whose life is a great encouragement and teaching to me. She didn't start well. In secondary school, she was influenced greatly by bad company and became a hooligan. She started smoking. She attached vulgarities to the things she said. She acted like she owned the world. She was what we would call, a mess up. She was literally running a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction. It would be easy for people to think that she was in a hole so deep she would never be able to climb out. But that was not the case.

There is no pit too deep that God could not pull a person out! She was pulled out. She was saved and her life changed completely. And now, she leads and teach others in the right path. A completely changed person. All this? A perfect example of the work of God. Our life is in fact the ultimate testimony that we can show to anybody that we meet. A completely changed life is all the more better.

Does anyone know how we get the precious metal called gold? How we get that nice jewellery that is worth so much? Gold. It is 1st extracted from the mines as ore. Gold ore. This gold ore is dirty. Theres soil all around it. What to do? The people then use the water to wash this soil away. Wash wash. Some soil are much harder than others to get washed. But eventually, all the soil will be washed away. And that piece of gold ore will be clean. This is what God does with us too. When we are found by God, He will wash away all the sins from us. We will be clean. And from there we can be used by God to do His work.

What does the gold miner do with the gold ore then? He will then put the gold ore into fire and smelt it. He will smelt it so that the gold ore is ready to be worked on by him. The process of smelting is done so as to remove impurities that cannot be removed by just washing through water. God will sometime put us through fire to help us remove our impurities too. You know, just coming to know the Lord will not make us a good person completely. We sometimes have to go through many difficulties to purge the impurities from our lives. To be completely in tune with the christian walk. God puts us through trials to let us know that we need to depend on Him. That is how we develop in the christian walk.

After smelting, the gold miner will take the pure gold and beat it. Beating it with the hammer untill it becomes the shape that is desired. After the beating, the gold would then be valuable and become very worthy. Many a times, God beats us into shape through difficulties in our lives. These difficulties are those that make us a stronger christian so that we can do God's work even better. The gold miner will beat the gold, yes. But he will never beat it untill it breaks. Thats because the breaking the piece of gold would be wasting the gold miner's efforts and time. God will not put us through a trial that we cannot handle. God only puts us through trials that will make us strong. Eventually, we will be made stronger and stronger, being able to do more and more of God's work.

This girl that I know, I could see her life undergo the water, the fire and the hammer of God. From a dirty piece of gold ore, she has been transformed by the hand of God into a precious jewellery. I encourage all of my friends to pick up from this lesson, and learn not to give up when God is shaping you to be a stronger christian. And also, to not despise others and think them as "hopeless". Everyone of us, regardless of status, race, gender, age, education are all pieces of gold. God wants us to help this gold pieces to go under His hand and become precious jewellery.

I encourage all of those who are reading this to see beyond the soil and dirt in a person's life and see the true value of the gold in them. Every soul is valuable. There is no soil that is too difficult to wash off, no impurities too hard to remove and no gold too hard to shape. There is no pit too deep that God cannot reach.

No comments: